


Art Museum!AU: A Little Taste of Wonderful

by thisstarvingartist



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: All The Tropes, Alternate Universe, Angst, Complete, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Time, Fluff, John has an obsession with Harold's Hands, M/M, Mild Dom/sub undertones, Moving In Together, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, art museum!au, but they both love Harold so they can't really help it, but we already knew that, double-dating, in which Harold is awkward, minor hurt/comfort, picnicing, security guard!John, so is Nathan, the machine is a dick, the slowest build, very slow build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:35:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 58
Words: 50,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3170042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstarvingartist/pseuds/thisstarvingartist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold, of course, wasn’t one for taking pictures of himself. However, he had discovered an unexpected blind spot in the Machine’s range of vision, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a curious place for the Machine not to have a visual, and apparently it knew it, and to Harold’s chagrin refused to acknowledge that Harold had entered the building at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You're Very Attractive

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [翻译 Art Museum 艺术馆](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3233405) by [BellaPotter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellaPotter/pseuds/BellaPotter)



> ^^^^I'm super excited that this fic is now available in Chinese!
> 
> now on Ao3 as requested by mamahub!
> 
> also found on my tumblr: http://whiskerknittles.tumblr.com/tagged/art%20museum!au
> 
> **original idea from this post by michacl on tumblr: http://michacl.tumblr.com/post/106953676297/im-at-a-museum-right-now-and-im-really-bored-so

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Excuse me,” a deep, gravelly voice whispered behind him. “You’re not allowed to take pictures of the artwork.”

Harold, of course, wasn’t one for taking pictures of himself. However, he had discovered an unexpected blind spot in the Machine’s range of vision, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a curious place for the Machine not to have a visual, and apparently it knew it, and to Harold’s chagrin refused to acknowledge that Harold had entered the building at all.

“I’m walking through Gallery 153 right now,” Harold insisted to his cell phone. It buzzed, and he glared down at the small ‘No.’ written in response. “Yes, I am!”

He stopped in front of the fragmented statue of Diadoumenos and, carefully waiting until the security guard was turned, snapped a picture of it and pressed ‘send’.

Barely half a second later his phone buzzed again, reading the same message. ‘No.’

Harold sighed in exasperation, turning the camera on himself and making sure that he was getting the statue in the background. He glared sternly into the camera as he snapped the picture, like one would look at a naughty child.

“Excuse me,” a deep, gravelly voice whispered behind him. “You’re not allowed to take pictures of the artwork.”

He jumped, turning around to face the voice’s owner. It was the security guard, eyeing Harold and the camera critically. He was quite tall, Harold saw, with evident muscles beneath his fitted uniform and soft, smoldering eyes. His jaw was sharp and his cheekbones high, and Harold decided with a rush of color to his cheeks that _this_ was the kind of man sculptors of old would salivate over, Diadoumenos be damned.

“Oh, I—” Harold fumbled, glancing down at the phone in his hand as if he’d forgotten it. “My sincerest apologies, I was actually trying to take one of, ahem…” Harold’s blush deepened. “… of myself.”

The security guard smiled at him, a soft, teasing smile that somehow made him even more attractive, and Harold swallowed. “I know.”

Harold gaped, and if his cheeks could possibly get any redder he must have looked like he was ready to morph into a tomato. He winked at him, so smoothly Harold wasn’t quite sure whether or not it had actually happened, and the guard stepped past him, arm brushing softly against Harold’s shoulder and sending what must have been a static shock through him. Yes, static; it _must_ have been static.

Suddenly, Harold’s cell phone buzzed, and he looked down.

‘Pocket.’

Puzzled, Harold reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, which he knew to be emp—oh, there was a small paper inside. He pulled it out, discovering that it was in fact a business card made by the museum. Cautiously, he flipped it over. There was a message, for him.

_John Reese. You’re very attractive. Call me? 555-2836_

Harold stared down at the message, in awe. He looked around wildly for the security guard, but he was gone from sight.

Harold immediately turned his glare on the blinking security camera facing him.

“Nothing is wrong with your vision,” Harold accused the camera. His phone remained silent.

With a sigh that wasn’t quite as exasperated as he had hoped, Harold left the museum to return to the library—with the business card tucked safely in his breast pocket.


	2. The Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, it was looking to expand its repertoire.

Harold spent the next two days sitting at his desk in the library, staring at the hastily scribbled message on the back of the business card, and worrying.

Certainly, there was a vast list of reasons he could come up with that suggested contacting the security guard—this John Reese—was a terrible idea. First of all, the Machine had sent him there, and somehow, it appeared that its intention had been solely to make Harold and Mr. Reese meet. This was severely concerning to him, because not only did it show possible signs of—he prayed he was over speculating—sentience, it also suggested the possibility that the Machine was attempting to control his personal life. He and Nathan hadn’t built the Machine to intervene in their love lives, they’d built it to provide a way to detect terrorist attacks before they happened. That was _still_ its purpose.

Apparently, it was looking to expand its repertoire.

Concerns about the Machine’s apparent matchmaking habits aside, there was the fact of its existence at all; certainly, being so involved with a secret, all-seeing machine, it wouldn’t be safe for Harold to engage in a personal relationship with _anyone_ —save for Nathan, of course. Harold found himself wishing rather desperately that Nathan was there with him to offer advice, although with Nathan currently on a business trip with IFT to Japan, he wasn’t exactly in a position to help Harold with his dilemma. Harold could, of course, imagine what he’d say:

 _“Oh, Harold, you absolutely_ have _to call him!”_

_“I saw him on the Machine’s monitors; he’s GORGEOUS. Don’t tell me you’re not interested.”_

_“Come on, Harold, give the poor kid a chance.”_

Harold sighed. That was _exactly_ what Nathan would say. It was really quite frustrating to work with someone so uncannily predictable; yet, at the same time, it was somewhat reassuring.

With nervous reluctance, Harold picked up his cell phone.

The number rang five times, during which Harold became increasingly more nervous about his decision, until finally the answering machine clicked on.

“Oh, hello, erm, Mr. Re—John. I noticed you left a business card in my pocket the other day and I—I thought I should call. I apologize for the abruptness. Although, I suppose you may have been hoping I would call sooner, since you did _give_ me your number. If that is the case, I apologize for the delay. I—I have been exceedingly busy the past few days, so please don’t assume I’ve been intentionally ignoring your message. It… I suppose a thank you is in order. I’m pleased that—or, I suppose I’m flattered that you find me, uhm—attractive. Very attractive, I suppose. I believe I can safely assume you will no longer find me so after hearing this message.”

Harold muffled the speaker, panting slightly, cheeks red. Good lord, he was horrible at this. “In any case, I just wanted to… call you. Since you asked. I hope this message finds you well. Ahem. Goodbye.”

Harold hung up the phone and dropped it on the desk, covering his face in his hands.

“This is entirely your fault,” he informed the computer in front of him.


	3. And Your Name Is...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Had he just—yes, of course he had. John had asked him out. On a date.

Harold’s cell phone rang at seven thirty-six that evening, after he had buried himself so thoroughly in his coding he’d nearly convinced himself that he could forget about a sharp-jawed figure with peppered gray hair and hooded eyelashes.

He was wrong. He was also, however, thoroughly surprised that even after the completely horrendous message he had left on the man’s answering machine, John had decided to call him back.

Harold snatched the device up so suddenly he nearly sent it skidding across the desk, pressing ‘answer’ after a taking a slow, deliberate breath and bringing the speaker up to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s John,” came the reply, from a voice soft and heavy like stone wrapped in velvet, crisp despite the crackle of static over the line. “I saw you called on my break, but I didn’t want to get back to you until I got off work.”

“Oh, yes, of course—that’s completely understandable,” Harold agreed, nodding vehemently despite the fact that they were speaking over the phone, and John clearly couldn’t see him.

“You left me a message.”

“Oh… yes; my sincerest apologies for that.”

“No apology necessary,” John said. It could have been Harold’s imagination, but he thought that perhaps there was a hint of amusement in his voice. “I’m glad you called.”

“Yes… as am I.” Harold was blushing. Again. Honestly, he wasn’t usually this sheepish around others—well, he was, but usually he could manage to maintain some semblance of detached professionalism when he felt in any way out of place or uncomfortable; John seemed to make this impossible. He was blushing for the second time in a single day and if he didn’t get himself under control he would very likely say something quite embarrassing. _More_ embarrassing than he already had. If such a thing were possible.

“I was wondering,” John said, as Harold pulled himself back to the conversation. “I know it’s kind of late; if you haven’t eaten yet I was hoping you might be interested in grabbing dinner with me.”

Harold sucked in a deep, silent breath and held it there. Had he just—yes, of course he had. John had asked him out. On a date. That was what people did, traditionally, after giving someone their number and calling them back after a short game of phone tag. Perfectly normal. Harold was not accustomed to normal, in any sense of the word.

“Well, I…” Harold hesitated, waveringly eyeing the Vietnamese takeout menu lying atop a pile of as-of-yet unorganized file folders.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” John assured him, at the exact same time when Harold stuttered out a nervous but definitive “Yes.”

The line was silent for a moment, and finally John spoke. “Really?”

He sounded surprised, like he hadn’t expected that answer. “Yes,” Harold repeated, resolutely turning his gaze away from the menu. “I would very much like to join you for dinner. Where should we meet?”

“Central Park?” John asked. “By the fountain.”

“Alright,” Harold said, “the fountain.”

“Oh, one thing, before you go,” John said, catching Harold just before he hung up.

“Yes?”

“What’s your name?”

Harold very nearly dropped his head on top of the keyboard. “Oh, of course—I’m terribly sorry; My name is Harold. Harold… Finch.”

He’d have to construct an entirely new alias with the name Harold Finch, but he didn’t mind; something about it sounded right for the moment.

“Harold,” John repeated. “Nice to meet you. See you in a few minutes.”

“By the fountain,” Harold said. He ended the phone call and quickly got to his feet, searching for his coat.


	4. Just Lovely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Lovely,” Harold said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t post a chapter yesterday because I was feeling pretty down, so have one twice as long as the other ones!
> 
> Also found on my Ao3 account, thisstarvingartist!

It was a warm evening for January, the sun slowly creeping its way down along the horizon and casting a soft, purplish light on the city. The forecast had called for light rainshowers in the late evening. Luckily, the there was no sign of precipitation in the clear sky above, beneath which Harold Finch was walking briskly, on his way to meet up with his date, John Reese.

His date. Oh, dear. He was a _grown man_ ; he really shouldn’t feel so many butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

He reached the Bethesda Fountain and spent several minutes standing awkwardly beside a viewing bench, worrying ridiculous things, like John wouldn’t recognize him when he arrived, or Harold wouldn’t recognize John, which actually sounded entirely ludicrous, because the man certainly didn’t have a forgettable face—

He caught sight of him a few moments later, making his way around from the other side of the fountain, his eyes scanning the sparse crowd. He was bundled up in a thick black overcoat, a little too heavy for the weather, Harold thought, and he his mouth was pressed in a tight, thin line. Eventually, John’s eyes reached the park bench where Harold was standing, and his somber, almost grim expression suddenly broke away into a full-fledged smile. Harold found himself raising a hand from his side to offer a tiny, self-conscious wave as John turned on his heel to make his way over to him.

“Harold,” John said, upon reaching Harold. He stopped a good four feet away, hands stuck deep in his pockets and head tilted down and to the side, shyly but endearingly, like a puppy.

Harold nodded in return, attempting a relaxed politeness that probably appeared at best coldly distant, at worst completely disinterested. “Good evening, John.”

John just continued to smile, moving his head and shoulders to gesture back, the way he’d come. “Would you like to go?”

“What? No, I’m—oh, you mean to dinner. Yes, of course.”

They walked from the park to a little restaurant on the corner of Eighty-Fourth and Fifth, with a beautiful view of the park from the terrace. They were led to a table by a smiling young waitress, who took their orders of wine and disappeared back into the café. Harold spent the majority of the time he should have used looking at the menu staring at John, staring at _his_ menu. After a moment, his eyes flickered up, and Harold immediately looked down, color rising to his cheeks.

The waitress came back with their wine. They placed their orders—John requested the filet of steak, medium rare, while Harold chose the smoked salmon with a side of fresh peas—before both took silent sips of their drinks, trading shy glances with one another.

“I heard on the news this morning it’s supposed to rain,” Harold finally said, immediately feeling ridiculous for choosing such a predictably tedious topic of discussion.

John looked up at the sky, thoughtfully. “Hmm. Doesn’t look like it.” He looked back down at Harold, his gaze soft and encouraging. “I’m glad.”

“I rather like rain, myself,” Harold said.

John nodded. “So do I,” he agreed. “But if it rained, then we’d have to cut our dinner date short.”

Harold peered over at him, perplexed. “Perhaps I’m missing something, but we haven’t exchanged two sentences since we met at the fountain. How on earth are you having a good time?”

John looked surprised, at first, and Harold wanted to melt under those blue eyes, he really did. John shrugged calmly.

“I don’t mind silence, as long as it’s in good company.” He smiled softly, leaning forward on the table with a playful glimmer in his eyes. “Get any good pictures at the museum?”

Harold blushed, eyes flickering up to the security camera glaring down at him before returning to John. “Not particularly. I suppose I was too busy admiring the artwork to think of capturing it through a camera lens.”

“What’s your favorite piece?” John asked.

“Oh, to be honest, I’m more a fan of literature than art,” Harold admitted. “I only visited because a—friend suggested it.”

“Thank your friend for me,” John said.

They continued with small bouts of inconsequential small talk until their food arrived, and Harold witnessed with minor wonder the sight of John Reese practically consuming a filet of steak whole. The plate was empty in minutes. John looked up, catching his look, and ducked his head, seemingly embarrassed.”

“Would you like some of mine?” Harold asked, gesturing to his plate. John blinked up at him.

“I’m not particularly hungry,” Harold said. In fact, his appetite had been stifled at the fountain when he’d laid eyes on John’s smooth, sculpted chin, curl of gray hair, and brilliant smile, stomach twisting into tight but not altogether unpleasant knots. He quickly traded his plate with John’s, before the other man could protest, and said wryly, “It would be a shame to waste it.”

John smiled, biting down into Harold’s dish. It took him longer to eat this, Harold noted, though whether that had to do with him not liking the fish or actively working to maintain elegance, he couldn’t be sure. He looked like an angel, even when he ate, Harold thought; all soft lips, square shoulders, gentle hands that moved and swayed with the breeze like a tall, powerful tree.

“Lovely,” Harold said unexpectedly, and John looked amusedly at him. He covered his mouth, not having meant to say it aloud, and searched for a way to save face. “The—view. It’s really quite lovely.”

“So is the food,” John agreed, and he didn’t remove his eyes from Harold’s as he took another bite of salmon.

“And the company,” Harold added, masking his bashful grin with a quick sip of wine.


	5. Ae Fond Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Thine be ilka joy and treasure,  
>  Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!_

It was getting dark after they finished their meal, and part of Harold was disappointed; he felt he would likely be content to spend the rest of the night talking with John. After their initial awkwardness and Harold’s mostly disassociated knowledge of the arts, they had finally struck up a conversation regarding fine literature—which Harold considered a kind of art unto itself. Surprisingly, John agreed, and he had brilliant opinions on Twain, Austen, and Fitzgerald; he even knew Harold’s favorite Robert Burns poem—by heart.

“‘Deep in heart wrung tears I’ll pledge thee, warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee,’” he finished, and Harold sighed, a little bit soft like a laugh, although he thought there might have been a small note of the newly developing adoration welling in the pit of his heart.

“Truly a beautiful read,” he said, as they walked down the sidewalk with the sun-bathed buildings looming warm and pink overhead. “The tragedy of losing a loved one; there’s nothing quite so impactful on an individual as that.”

“Yes,” John agreed, with a hint of strain in his voice. When Harold looked at him, he offered a tiny, sad smile, shrugging. “My fiancée died, a few years ago. Car accident.”

“Oh my god,” Harold said, stopping. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s alright,” John insisted, stopping with him. “It was an accident. But it did change my life; I proposed to her, just before the towers fell—I decided to stay in the service, to help with the fight, but when she died I just… I had to get out.”

His eyes were focused on the ground, resigned to judgment, like Harold would find his admission shameful. The sunlight lit up his face in a soft, rich haze, every sharp angle and curve in his smoothly sculpted face in bright relief. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to watch anyone else I cared about die, afterwards.”

Gently, Harold put a hand on John’s shoulder. His eyes flickered up, to meet Harold’s kind, empathetic gaze.

“I lost my father when I was a teenager,” Harold said softly. “I believe the most profound changes in one’s life come from the loss of someone special.”

John’s shoulders relaxed, smile returning. “I think it’s the changes we decide to make, after that loss. And the bonds we forge after.”

He moved close, then, and Harold caught his breath as he leaned in, bracing for a soft brush of lips against his—

John bumped their shoulders together, and Harold jumped, surprised. John laughed, a tiny, vibrant sound, and they continued down the way.


	6. Rain on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John’s face brightened immediately, a ray of sunshine in the pouring rain, and Harold felt his chest flutter.

There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky when Harold last glanced up, but nevertheless fifteen minutes later he and John were caught in a torrential downpour strong enough that it threatened to wash them both away entirely. They took temporary shelter beneath the short ledge of a stony building, the cold wetness permeating through Harold’s abruptly too-thin coat.

Barely a moment later Harold found himself flush against the other man’s warm chest, thick jacket blanketed over their heads. Harold looked up at him through raindrop stained glasses; his rain-soaked grin, Harold found, was highly infectious, and before long, he was grinning too.

They managed to catch a taxi and climbed inside, dripping and laughing uproariously as Harold gave the taxi driver directions to his building, a small brownstone house in Yorkville. Harold wiped off his glasses with the inside corner of his sleeve while John shook his head like a dog fresh out of a bath, spraying him mercilessly.

“Honestly,” Harold griped, scooting to the far side of the taxi. John slid to the middle of the seat, draping his arms over the back of the seat, conveniently behind Harold’s shoulders. Harold pretended not to notice, and he leaned back, watching John’s languid, relaxed form sprawling, head lolling back as he smiled at nothing. At the roof. Harold smiled at it too. He was smiling at everything.

“I had a wonderful evening,” Harold whispered, and John turned his head to look at him, eyes bright and full of good cheer.

“Me too,” he said. His far hand dropped down from the empty side of the taxi and came to rest on his lap, fingers just close enough to brush the hem of Harold’s pants. Harold’s hands moved close enough to touch the tips of his fingers.

They reached the brownstone far too quickly, for Harold’s taste; if he didn’t have so much work to do, he would have invited John inside. Unfortunately, building a sentient AI that could see everything in the whole of New York and detect terrorist attacks made it difficult to find free time.

“Thank you,” Harold said, when John ran with him to the front stoop to shelter him from the rain. “For everything. I haven’t had that much fun in… a very long time.”

John beamed at him. “So I can see you again?”

“I would like that very much,” Harold said, touching John’s arm and tilting his head. He was getting lost, again, in those pale blue eyes, the softness of his gaze, the hopelessly genuine endearment held within them. Oh, Nathan was _never_ going to let him hear the end of it.

The taxi honked loudly, and John glanced at it, frowning as though he couldn’t bear the idea of leaving Harold so soon.

“John,” Harold said, pulling John’s gaze back over to him. “I would really like to see you again. Soon.”

John’s face brightened immediately, a ray of sunshine in the pouring rain, and Harold felt his chest flutter.

“I’ll call you,” John said, shyly. “If that’s alright.”

“Absolutely,” Harold agreed. “I’ll be sure to keep the line free for you.”

They looked endearingly at one another until the taxi horn blared again, and John snapped a sharp glare at the vehicle before giving Harold’s arm a gentle squeeze. Then he was running back to the taxi. Harold watched him, watched until the taxi drove off down the road and he was left alone on the stoop, the quiet drum of rain like music to his ears.


	7. Love Sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you at home?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to nemo for the suggestion on where to go for this chapter! i absolutely love sick fics!!

Harold awoke the next day with what was possibly the worst bout of influenza he’d experienced since his childhood.

He sneezed loudly, dropping his head back onto the pillow and letting out a muted groan. He was too busy to be sick; he had work to do, on the Machine, for IFT—he didn’t have the time to be sick.

He crawled out of bed and was immediately hit with a wave of dizziness enough to knock him back down. After twenty minutes rubbing his watering eyes and willing the headache away, he got to his feet again, and shuffled to the bathroom.

He wrapped himself in a thick robe and shuffled to the kitchen, making himself a cup of coffee and collapsing at the kitchen table in a tired heap.

Well, if this was going to be his day, he apparently didn’t have a choice but to stay at home.

Harold climbed back up the stairs to the bedroom, drawing the curtains closed and shutting off the lights. He returned to bed, falling asleep almost before his head hit the pillow. Around six hours later he was revived from his slumber by the sound of his cell phone ringing on the nightstand.

“Hullo?” he mumbled with a clogged nose.

“Hey, Harold? It’s John,” came the response. Harold immediately tried to sit up, fumbling for the light.

“Oh, John! Good morn—uhr, good uhfturnoon.”

“I’m on my lunch break and wanted to call you,” John said. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Oh, yuhs, I’m f—A- _CHOO!_ Ugguh… I muhy huv cut uh but of uh cold.”

“Oh god, it was the rain, wasn’t it? Harold, I’m so sorry—”

“No, no ut’s not your fuhlt, John.” Harold shook his head vehemently, despite the pounding in his head that worsened with each shake. “I—A-CHOO—I’m uhlright, ruhlly.”

“Are you at home? I can come right over,” John said.

“Oh, no, you don’t huv to—” Harold sat up and was overrun by a violent fit of coughing. He sunk back into the bed, subdued.

“I’m on my way,” John told him.

“But you’re uht work,” Harold protested, weakly.

“I’ll take a half day,” John said. “Just stay there, Harold. I’ll be there soon.”

By the time John arrived Harold had drifted back to sleep, and was roused by loud knocking at the front door. He managed to make it to the door to let him in before he actually broke the poor thing down, and once it was open he was being ushered around, back to the steps.

“Come on Harold, let’s get you back to bed,” John murmured, guiding Harold up the stairs.

“Uhf you unsuhst,” Harold replied, allowing himself to be guided. “Secund door on thuh luft.”

John laid him down, tucked him in, and seemed to be gone for barely a moment before he had returned with a glass of cold water.

“I’m so sorry, Harold,” John apologized profusely, as Harold sipped at the water. “I can’t believe I let this happen.”

“I don’t thuhnk you cuhn contruhl the wuther, John,” Harold informed him, as curtly as he could with a stuffy nose, “It’s not your fuhlt.”

“Next time I’ll bring an umbrella,” John insisted, but he was smiling, and Harold allowed him to lay him gently down.

“I’m sorry, I must look turruhble,” Harold murmured.

“It doesn’t matter,” John told him, placing a gentle hand on Harold’s chest, and another on his forehead. His thumb stroked gently along Harold’s brow and he sighed into it, his hand coming up to rest on John’s. It was all so strange and intimate, and Harold had to admit that he really didn’t mind it at all.


	8. In which the Machine is a Jerk (Again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You do realize you aren’t supposed to use those when _other_ people are sick, yes?”

Harold’s cold lasted a good week, though he had slipped into recovery by the fourth day; despite this, John insisted on coming to spend the day with him every day he was home, and had taken to making oatmeal and chicken soup and bringing it to him in bed.

“I seriously doubt your employer will be pleased,” Harold informed him five days in, when he could sit up and properly breathe through both nostrils again.

“I have enough sick days to last a month,” John told him, and although it was jokingly Harold had a feeling it was probably true; John didn’t seem the type to miss work for anything less than a bout of black plague.

“You do realize you aren’t supposed to use those when _other_ people are sick, yes?” Harold said.

John only smiled in response.

-

Nathan returned to New York just after Harold was well enough to get back to work. He strode into the office at IFT, all wide shoulders and expensive Italian dress shoes, smile wide and charming as always.

“‘Welcome back, Nathan,’” he said, boisterously slapping a hand on Harold’s shoulder and spinning him away from his desk. “‘I’m so happy you’re home, safe and sound. How was your trip? Would you like a cup of coffee?’”

“Contrary to what our business partners may believe, I’m not actually your secretary, Nathan,” Harold said curtly, turning back to his computer and resuming his work. “Nor am I your husband. Get your own coffee.”

“Well, someone’s feeling better,” Nathan said, sauntering to the other side of the desk to peer at Harold over his computer monitor. “I heard from Cleenman you were sick.”

“As you can see, I’ve made a full recovery,” Harold replied.

“I can see. You even look a little more chipper than usual,” Nathan mused, a playful glint in his eye. “Anything interesting happen while I was out? With the Machine?”

“Not exactly,” Harold said, finally making eye contact with the man. It was rare that Harold could hold out information from Nathan, especially information of a personal nature; he hadn’t given the man so much as a hint about John.

Nathan tilted his head, intrigued. “So… what is it?”

Harold allowed a small, cryptic smile to ghost over his face. “I’m sure you’re abundantly curious.”

“You’re not usually one for games, Harold,” Nathan said, pulling out his phone. He stared down at the screen, brow furrowing slightly, before he looked back up at Harold. “What’s at the New York Museum of Art?”

“What?”

Harold scrambled to his feet, snatching the phone out of Nathan’s hand.

‘Museum of Art, New York NY. 36 W 44th St. 12:34 pm.’ Oh, he was going to _destroy_ that thing.

“The Machine just texted me. Is that a new feature you installed while I was gone?” He smiled, teasingly. “I shouldn’t be worried about anything, should I?”

Harold sighed heavily. “No, Nathan. Nothing’s wrong with the Machine.”

Nathan’s phone buzzed in his hand, and Nathan grabbed it away before he could check the message.

“J.R.? What’s J.R. mean?”

“Nothing—I can’t imagine what J.R. could mean.”

“Well, in that case,” Nathan said, pulling Harold to his feet. “It looks like we’re going on a trip to the art museum.”


	9. What's in a Name?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “C’mon, how cute is he? This _John Reese_. When do I get to meet him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little shorter than usual, because the next one is probably going to be a bit longer than usual. Also: I love Nathan as Harold's overzealous and embarrassing bff and will never tire of reading/writing about it.

“So, what’s her name?”

Harold glowered at Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm while Nathan casually examined the museum brochure he’d snagged at the entrance. “Come on, Harold, if you don’t tell me I’ll have to start guessing. Maggie? Sam. Grace? Ethel??”

“Nathan, _stop it_.” Harold sighed. “ _His_ name is John.”

“John?” Nathan leered at him, playfully. “John—Doe? John what? John Who?”

“John _Reese_.”

“What, like the candy? I didn’t think you had a sweet tooth.” Nathan nudged his shoulder. “Unless we’re talking about _eye_ candy.”

“Nathan, I am going to _slap_ you!”

“C’mon, how cute is he? This _John Reese_. When do I get to meet him?”

“How about right now?”

Harold and Nathan turned in surprised unison at the voice, and Harold’s breath caught in his throat. There was John, buttoned and crisp in his security uniform, just like the first day they’d met; even the gentle, hopeful look was still there, a warm flame in his clear blue eyes.

He turned to look at Nathan, dipping his head at him. “Hi; I’m John.”

Nathan’s face lit up with a blinding smile. “Ah, the famous John Reese! What a pleasure to finally meet you! I’m Harold’s best friend, Nathan.”

Harold eyed him despondently. “ _Best_ friend might be a bit of a stretch.”

Nathan only laughed, patting his shoulder. John smiled softly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“So a security guard, eh?” Nathan gave John a thoroughly embarrassing once-over while Harold fidgeted beside him. “This must be where you and Harold met.”

“Yes, it is.” John looked at Harold, a soothing gaze. “We met in front of the Diadoumenos in Gallery 153.”

“Nothing more romantic than a statue of a naked Greek athlete,” Nathan said with a sidelong smirk at Harold.

“ _Nathan_ ,” Harold hissed at him.

“I was actually about to go on lunch break,” John said, looking away from Nathan to fix his gaze back on him. “I was going to call and see if Harold was free.”

Harold stopped glaring at Nathan to look up at John, both surprised and delighted at John’s words. John smiled at him. He made a mental note to change his regular lunch break to 12:30.

“Excellent!” Nathan exclaimed, startling the pair from their enamored gawking. “We can have lunch together. I know this lovely little Italian restaurant on the corner of 84th and Madison—”

“Nathan, I really don’t think—” Harold started, before John suddenly interrupted him.

“That sounds great,” John agreed. “But I’ve only got half an hour.”

“Then we’d better hurry,” Nathan replied, ushering them both out of the gallery. “We can mock famous paint splatters on a canvas later. Right now, it’s time to get to know each other!”


	10. So.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh my _god._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the longest chapter so far; you know, this was SUPPOSED to be a short, 500 word drabble. *squints suspiciously at crowd*
> 
> disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about the aging of fine wines. Or alcohol. Like, literally anything pertaining to alcohol is complete nonsensical bull.

They were seated at a table on the veranda of the Italian bistro, at a table with a gorgeous view of lower Manhattan, and served fresh breadsticks and glasses of ice cold water before they had time to so much as look over the menus. Harold sat stiffly, anxious; he had to talk to Nathan. Privately; about John. About the Machine. But how was he going to do that when John—

Oh, he looked so ludicrously handsome in his work shirt and tie, pepper gray hair smoothed back and lips pursed, polite and stoic. His long fingers ghosted along the edge of the tablecloth, nearing Harold’s hand then shying away, like he was thinking about touching it, but didn’t want to spook him, especially in front of Nathan. If he even realized that Nathan was there; the man seemed to only have eyes for Harold, and occasionally his lap when Harold met his gaze, blushing profusely.

Harold picked up his glass and took a slow sip. He watched Nathan’s mouth open, in that familiar way that suggested whatever he was about to say, he definitely shouldn’t say it, but he either didn’t care or he was making the assumption that all immediate parties were already aware of it. Whatever it was, Harold was ninety-nine point nine percent sure John wouldn’t know it.

Thinking on his feet was not a strong suit for Harold, so he was just as surprised as Nathan and John when his hand suddenly thrust out across the table towards the breadsticks and knocked John’s water off the table and into his lap.

“Oh, John! I’m so sorry, oh,” Harold cried out, scrambling for his napkin and unwrapping it for John to mop up the spill. “I’m really so sorry, I should have been paying better attention—”

“It’s all right, Harold,” John insisted, smiling soothingly even as he stood dripping in front of them. “It was an accident. I should probably go clean up in the restroom; excuse me.”

He dipped his head politely at Nathan, offered Harold an endlessly endearing smile, and moved back towards the restaurant in search of the restroom.

“Oh my _god,_ ” Nathan gushed as soon as he was out of earshot.

“Nathan, please don’t.”

“He’s _GORGEOUS._ ”

Harold sighed. “I knew you’d say that.”

“Well he is,” Nathan replied, and Harold couldn’t argue, so he dove into the thick of it instead.

“He thinks my name is Finch,” he said.

“What?”

“Finch; he thinks my name is Harold Finch.”

“Why on earth does he think that?”

“Because that’s what I _told_ him.”

Nathan eyed him queerly, before reaching over the table to pick up his water glass and take a sip. “Why?”

“Because I’m not in the habit of passing around my identity to complete strangers,” Harold snapped, defensively. He couldn’t help it; his true identity was a sacred thing. Even Nathan didn’t know it—he thought he did. Part of Harold felt slightly guilty for never indulging his true name to the man.

“Oh come on, Harold,” Nathan groaned, rolling his eyes. “Did you _see_ him? How long have you been involved, two weeks? Three?”

“We’re not _involved_ ,” Harold sputtered, blushing furiously, “And we’ve only known each other since last Saturday.”

“My god, you do realize you’ve got the man wrapped around your pinky finger, right? He’s completely besotted with you.” Nathan laughed. “You’ve already made a mess of the poor boy.”

“If you would please pay attention,” Harold gritted, glowering at Nathan, “There is a matter of some urgency we must discuss.”

“Okay, shoot,” Nathan said, leaning forward on his elbows and focusing intently on Harold. “What’s got you so distressed? Aside from the male Aphrodite drying himself off in the back.”

“It’s the Machine, Nathan,” Harold said.

Nathan became suddenly serious. “What about it?”

“Well,” Harold said, distressed, “It—it _sent_ me to him.”

“To who? To John?”

“Yes!”

“Why would it do that?” Nathan smirked. “You’re not telling me _the Machine_ is trying to play matchmaker too.”

“ _Too_? Oh, never mind; yes, Nathan, for whatever reason the Machine seems intent on making sure that John and I—oh, I don’t know. Meet? Make friends?”

“Get married and make tiny bespectacled Reese-lets together?” Nathan suggested.

“You’re _terrible!_ ”

“Listen, Harold, whatever reason the Machine has for bringing the two of you together can’t be all bad—it is supposed to _protect_ people, remember? Maybe it thinks this will be good for you.”

“I don’t give a damn what it thinks,” Harold snapped, and Nathan eyed him jovially until he realized that he’d startled a few nearby tables.

He lowered his voice, tone still scathing. “Look, Nathan, all I want is your assurance that you won’t tell John my real name.”

“Afraid he won’t be happy to learn you lied to him?” Nathan asked, cooly.

Before Harold could argue the point, John returned from the restroom, moderately dry and smiling hopefully at them. Harold smiled back, flashing a slight scowl at Nathan when John looked down at his menu.

He caught the disconcerted look in John’s eyes when he saw the exorbitant food prices, hazarding an uncertain glance at Harold.

“It’s alright,” Harold assured him, flashing Nathan a venomous glare. “ _Nathan_ offered to pick up the check.”

“Of course,” Nathan agreed immediately, slapping down his menu. “Don’t worry over the prices; it’s my treat. Now, John, I want you to listen carefully; I’m determined to let you in on every dirty little secret Harold here has.”

Harold scowled openly at him, completely aware that the man was only half joking, and John let out a half surprised chuckle.

“For example: did you know Harold is the secretary of one of the biggest firms in the city?” Nathan asked.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, he is; he’s my secretary, in fact. Ingram, if you didn’t catch on already: I’m Nathan Ingram.”

“The CEO of IFT,” John acknowledged, smiling lightly. “I recognized you at the museum. I’m not surprised that Harold has friends in high places.”

“The highest,” Nathan agreed, ignoring the kick aimed at his shin from underneath the table. “Do you prefer lobster, John, or oyster? I’m more of an oyster man, myself.”

-

The lunch ended with five minutes for John to return to the museum, but Nathan was making it difficult for him to escape; he hadn’t stopped talking to him since the entrée’s arrived.

“You’ve _got_ to join us tonight for drinks,” Nathan insisted, scribbling down the address on the back of a business card while Harold resisted the urge to melt into the sidewalk from embarrassment. “I have the best scotch, bottled in 1937—best year of the twentieth century.”

“If you’re quite finished keeping him from his job, Nathan,” Harold growled, pulling John gently away after he politely accepted the card, glaring down at the ground balefully as he spoke.

“I must apologize for Nathan; if he’s made you uncomfortable in any way, I assure you I will have a long talk with him about—”

“Is it okay?” John asked. “If I come?”

Harold looked up at him, surprised.

“I know you were kind of uncomfortable in there,” John said, gesturing back to the restaurant. “I don’t want to impose. I just… I like spending time with you. And Nathan.”

The quick ‘And Nathan’ added at the end made Harold smile, because he had a feeling John was just as put off by the man’s abrasiveness as he was. He loved the man—but he had a feeling that had more to do with the length of time they’d been forced to spend together rather than a genuine appreciation for his attitude. Despite this, John was more than willing to put up with an evening alone with Nathan, just to spend more time with Harold. He was… well, he was flattered, really.

“That’s… I would love it if you would join us, John,” Harold said.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be difficult—”

“Oh, no; it isn’t _you_ that’s being difficult, I assure you.”

Harold threw a scalding glance over his shoulder at the business executive in question, who had been very evidently listening in on their conversation, and was beaming widely.

“We’ll be in the penthouse,” Nathan said. “Tell Fitz—that’s the doorman—that I requested you. See you at eight?”

“Eight,” John agreed, nodding, and giving Harold a helpless look as he inched away from them.

“Go on, don’t be late,” Harold urged him, and John smiled gratefully before turning on his heel and darting away from them, into the crowd. Harold watched his sleek form sprint down the street and out of sight, before rounding on Nathan.

“I just want to make sure things work out between the two of you,” Nathan intervened before Harold could yell at him. “I don’t remember the last time you were in a relationship, and _this_ time it only happened because you were tricked by an artificial intelligence.”

Harold felt very strongly the need to argue his case, but, well—he didn’t really have one. So.


	11. A Story of Frogs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Had he ever felt this way?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, dear; this turned out a lot longer than I planned. Whoops.  
> (small reference to the Epilogue of Home Run by astolat, the queen of POI fic; a wonderful fic by a wonderful author. I really loved her story about frogs. Tragically, there are actually very few frogs in this chapter, despite what the title may suggest.)

“Did Harold ever tell you about Hagman’s Calculus Three course?”

“ _Nathan_ ,” Harold sighed, taking a small sip of scotch while John and Nathan leaned closer, Nathan grinning at John devilishly.

“Relax, it’s a great story. Hagman was without a doubt the biggest hard ass at MIT,” Nathan began, settling himself on the couch and topping off his glass. “Worst professor I’ve ever had. He made the conscious effort to fail every single one of his students; of course, Harold thought that was a ridiculous philosophy.”

“It _is_ ridiculous,” Harold intervened, “and it certainly isn’t a philosophy. I’m affronted the man was considered an educator for so many years.”

“Now, John, what you have to understand is that Harold didn’t keep _any_ of this to himself,” Nathan explained. “He was _constantly_ debunking Hagman’s comments in class, until finally one day during class he announced that we would have one grade for the semester—just one—and he was going to make it impossible to pass. The whole class; he was going to fail the _whole class_ because Harold back-talked during a lecture. What was it you said, again?”

“I don’t remember,” Harold muttered, glaring at the floor.

“Oh, something about Hagman spending too much time shining his loafers to pay attention to his ass wagging in the air, wasn’t it? Anyway, it was hilarious, but suddenly the whole class was being informed by their professor that he was going to give them an unpassable final—over two hundred students! Students _cried_. It was a dark day on the MIT campus, let me tell you. But oh, Harold, he wasn’t about to take that lying down. He set up study groups for every afternoon, different groups of all the students in the class.

“Of course, through all this, he knew that the test would be complete and utter bullshit. It didn’t matter if the students had aced Calc Four, there was no passing that test of Hagman had anything to do it. So the week before the test—come on, Harold, don’t look so sour; this is the best part!—Harold snuck into the lecture hall and stole Hagman’s answer key. He memorized the whole damn test: what was it, three hundred and ninety-six questions? He memorized the whole damn thing.”

“That’s impressive,” John said, nudging Harold ever so lightly with his knee. Harold dipped his head, a wry smile on his face.

“Damn right it is! But obviously, not all of us have photographic memories, and if Harold was the only one that passed the test, he wasn’t _really_ winning. Did I tell you what he did in the study groups? He taught every student—all four hundred of us—Morse code. Every student!”

“I feel it’s prudent to point out that I did, in fact, teach them as much Calculus Three as I could, as well,” Harold added, pointedly.

“But Morse code! And he distributed the answers to about sixty other students who sat around the hall, taking turns and tapping out answers every ten, fifteen seconds on the desk, on the chairs—subtly enough that it sounded like white noise to anyone who wasn’t listening. And the only one who wasn’t listening was Hagman.

“In the end, that impossible test? Every student aced it. Hagman was furious, until Harold came down to the front of the room on the last day to tell him that he was without a doubt the best professor he’d ever had.”

“Really?” John said, looking at Harold.

“Well, I may have tapped out a few choice words on the corner of the desk for the rest of the student body while I did so,” Harold finally admitted, blushing slightly while John smiled at him, clearly both impressed and delighted by the story. Nathan, true to form, was practically bent double in an uproarious fit of laughter.

“I know he doesn’t look it, but Harold is without a doubt the toughest anti-bullshit activist I’ve ever met,” Nathan said, wiping mirth from his eyes. “Truly a treasure to be cherished, this man.” He put a friendly arm around Harold’s stiff shoulders.

“Yes,” John agreed immediately, and Harold tried to hide his grin with a cough as he elbowed Nathan away.

“Honestly, if you want a good story remind me to tell you about the Biology incident with the frogs,” Harold said, and Nathan clapped his hands eagerly.

“Oh, I _love_ that one!”

“I’d love to, but I need to get some sleep before the sun comes up,” John said, clearly rueful, and Harold turned to look up at the clock to discover that it was nearly half past two in the morning.

“So soon?” Nathan frowned, disappointed. “Well, if you insist. Don’t think you won’t be coming back, though! This was a fantastic evening!”

“I’ll walk you to the door,” Harold said, quietly, as he stood up from the couch and placed his and John’s glasses on the coffee table.

He walked John to the elevator, and down to the bottom floor, and finally all the way out onto the front stoop of the luxurious apartment building before finally coming to a halt, the brisk night air cool and dry in his face.

“I’m truly sorry about Nathan,” Harold said quietly, looking at the ground. “He does mean well; but he’s a bit… pugnacious.”

“I don’t mind,” John said. “I had a wonderful time, really.”

He reached out, fingers just ghosting Harold’s elbow and forcing his gaze upwards, blue eyes staring into blue. His gaze was so gentle, so open, that Harold felt his breath hitch in his throat, his heart stutter a moment then speed up, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at someone and felt this way. Had he ever felt this way?

It was the still lingering smile on John’s lips that pushed Harold into action, the micro expression that made itself known every time John noticed Harold looking at him, sweet and subtle and absolutely wonderful.

Harold reached up, cupping John’s cheek in one hand, and pulled himself up, pressing his lips chastely against the coarse stubble of John’s cheek. He moved back too quickly to gauge a reaction from the man, but the surprise was evident in his eyes once Harold pulled away; as was the slowly growing adulation in his expression as his hand came up to cup his cheek where Harold’s lips had touched, a helpless grin overtaking his face.

“Good night, John,” Harold said, embarrassed and enamored all at once.

“’Night,” John replied, dreamily, as he made his way down the steps and waved down a taxi. He climbed in, still holding his cheek, and peered out the window, waving amorously out the window at Harold, who was helpless but to return the wave until the taxi had moved back onto the road and driven out of sight. Harold reached his hand up and touched his lips, the phantom warmth of John’s skin still present, if only in his mind.

“Okay, so clearly, you’re not the only one taking over lives here,” Nathan said, spooking him as he melted into reality almost out of nowhere. The ability to reprove Nathan for his imperious involvement in Harold’s life had all but disappeared for the evening, however, and he just turned his desperate, wide-eyed gaze up at the man.

“He’s just so _wonderful_ ,” Harold told him.

“Oh, Harold.” The tone of his voice was pitying, but the glint in his eye was nothing if not pleased. “You’ve got it _bad._ ”

And really, Harold didn’t even _want_ to argue, by then.


	12. Close to the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m pretty sure most secretaries don’t attend MIT.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might be gone for the next couple of days; have a little gift-giving fluff in case I don't update over the weekend.
> 
> Here's the bird, by the way: https://img0.etsystatic.com/045/0/7526386/il_340x270.667286096_8188.jpg

Harold did, in fact, change his regular lunch time to twelve-thirty. It was a good thing, too, for the next day as he left the IFT building he was met by none other than John, bundled up in his coat and smiling ardently at him.

“Harold,” he said. “Any chance you’re stepping out for lunch?”

“I am indeed,” Harold replied. “Would you care to join me?”

“I would like to very much.”

Since they both had rather short lunch breaks they stopped at a Vietnamese street vendor selling hot sandwiches two blocks away. John insisted on buying Harold’s food, despite fervent protests, and resignedly ate his Swiss bologna sandwich on a bench nearby the stand, John devouring his own ham and wheat sub ravenously beside him.

“You know you eat like you’ve been starved for days,” Harold informed him, and John grinned around a mouthful of bread, shrugging.

“Old habits,” John explained, after swallowing the bite.

“Understood. I assume you got it from your time in the military. If I may be so bold,” Harold said, suddenly, “What exactly was it that drew you to the security guard position? It certainly can’t bear all that much resemblance to army life.”

“The outfits are just as itchy,” John replied, drawing out a smile from the man beside him. “I suppose it was just easy to find a job in the field. I’ve always been good at keeping my eyes open, and I get to admire the artwork.”

“You don’t seem like the type to have an interest in fine art. Not that it isn’t a pleasant deviation from anticipated behavior, of course.”

“And you don’t seem like the type to be an office secretary,” John replied, pointedly. Harold eyed him uncertainly, but John just took another bite of his sandwich, oblivious.

“I’m pretty sure most secretaries don’t attend MIT,” John continued, after Harold left them in silence for several more minutes.

“If it helps increase the believability of my career choice, I dropped out,” Harold told him.

“So did Nathan, didn’t he?” John asked.

Harold didn’t respond immediately.

“I just mean you’re clearly too smart to _just_ be a secretary,” John explicated.

“You underestimate the necessary skills of a decent clerical worker,” Harold informed him, earning a light smirk.

They finished their meal in silence, and Harold stood, reluctant to return to IFT so quickly.

“Wait,” John said suddenly, as he rose to his feet. He reached into his coat pocket, muttering as he did so. “I know we only met two weeks ago, but I saw this in a store window the other day and I—it made me think of you.”

He handed Harold the item.

It was a small, blue glass figurine of a bird, smooth to the touch and warm from sitting inside John’s pocket for the duration of their meal.

“It’s a blue finch,” Harold laughed, surprised and delighted. He stared down at the small figurine in his palm as a slow, bashful smile expanded across his face. He looked up at John, who was watching intently for Harold’s reaction.

“It’s marvelous,” Harold exclaimed, holding the bird to his chest tightly, a precious thing. “I absolutely adore it. Thank you, John.”

“Can I…” he wavered, uncertainly. “Can I hug you?”

Harold blinked at him, surprised at first, but then he was moving forward to wrap his arms around John’s shoulders, and he closed his eyes, lost in the moment as John’s arms came up to entwine around his waist, pulling him close.

Later that day, Harold positioned the bird figurine on the corner of his desk in the library. It was the one place he would see it every day, and closest to his heart.


	13. Lontano da Te

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Is that Fred Buscaglione?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s snowing where I live, and I made hot chocolate with a friend. Listen to this video (http://www.yourepeat.com/watch/?v=f8jLgPvFEd8&start_at=0&end_at=161) while reading this chapter, and (if you're a better chef than me) try out the recipe!

Harold barely reached John’s apartment building in one piece. The snowstorm had hit Manhattan with startling force a good three days before it had been anticipated, and in just hours the city was blanketed with a thin coat of snow, and the storm was still raging. He hadn’t received the voicemail until that evening, on his way out of the library, and when he had he immediately turned on his heel and began running in the opposite direction from his apartment.

“Hey, Harold. You’re probably still at work right now; I just noticed that the weather is supposed to get pretty bad later, but I was wondering if you wanted to come over to my place for a little while. My address is 57th West forty-second, apartment three nineteen. Give me a call. Bye.”

There were no taxis on the roads, and no service in the storm, so Harold sprinted to John’s address through the near-empty streets, shielding his face from the cold flakes with his arm as he scanned the road signs fervently.

He reached John’s door, red-nosed and damp, and knocked lightly on the frame. A few moments later, the door swung open, and John was standing in front of him in a flower print apron, a wave of heat following him from inside the apartment.

“I’m sorry, I just heard your message and I couldn’t call you and there weren’t any taxis so I had to—is that Fred Buscaglione?”

John smiled. “Would you like to come in?”

“Very much so; it’s horrendously cold out there.”

Harold followed John into the apartment, the strong scent of chocolate almost overpowering him.

“I’m making Italian hot chocolate. Have you ever had it?”

“No; have you made it before?”

“Er, no. But it can’t be that hard, right?” John caught Harold’s gaze after it finished sweeping around the small, well-kept apartment, and offered another slight smile. “Especially with you here, now.”

Harold turned his eyes away, beaming foolishly at the floor.

John’s kitchen was tiny, and the only other apron he had was lime green with the traditional “kiss the cook” plastered on the front; Harold took it anyway, after ridding himself of his overcoat and jacket and placing them on the arm of the sofa. He rolled up his sleeves to the elbow and noted the way John looked at his forearms, half surprised as if it hadn’t even occurred to him that Harold had them.

It was a surprising learning experience, John and Harold both found; they discovered that corn starch is very, very messy, and chocolate bars are not nearly as easy to cut as the video suggested. By the end Harold had stripped out of his vest and tie, as well, and John still had specks of starch in his hair. Harold shook his head at him fondly, reaching up to dust him off.

In total the whole affair lasted a good forty minutes, and in the end the hot chocolate was clumpy, but the company was beyond perfection and Harold’s jaw ached from laughing so hard.

He looked out the window at the raging storm awaiting him with undisguised reluctance, and John looked too, immediately turning to face him.

“You can stay the night,” John said. “I’ll take the couch.”

Harold startled slightly. “That’s ridiculous, John, this is your apartment; it would be completely unacceptable for me as a guest to—”

“As the host, I insist,” John countered. His gaze was soft. “I’ll do absolutely anything to keep you from going out there.”

“Well…” Harold hesitated.

“Except let you sleep on the couch,” he added.

“Now that’s completely unfair, and you know it.”

They argued heatlessly for another hour, until Harold finally relented. He curled under the thick bedcovers in John’s bedroom, expecting the unfamiliar silence to close in on him, awkward nervousness to apprehend him. Instead, John’s smell and the quietly expanding warmth in his chest lulled him to sleep before he even had time to notice that he was tired.


	14. Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How good could a t-shirt _actually_ look on someone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be doing something else; I have 3 speeches due by the end of the month, three t-shirt designs, a Spanish test and a physics test to study for, and a Chinese New Year picture to finish. Instead, it seems I've almost reached 10,000 words on this "drabble". Oh, my.

Harold awoke slowly, sunlight filtering through the bedroom window and reflecting off his glasses to blind his eyes. He squinted, sitting up and rubbing his sleepy eyes, and looked down at himself. He was in a dark gray t-shirt, too large for his wiry shoulders, and striped sweat pants. His suit was missing.

He found it when he left the bedroom, hanging on the doorknob of a closet, freshly washed and ironed. He smiled softly, brushing the vest lightly before he padded barefoot out to the kitchen, where John was standing like an angel of god bathed in the sunlit room, making pancakes. He looked up as Harold entered, and that familiar smile lit up his face.

“Morning,” he said. “I made pancakes.”

“They smell wonderful,” Harold said, taking a seat at the counter. “Thank you for letting me borrow this.” He pulled at the t-shirt.

“It looks good on you,” John said, and Harold blushed slightly, because really it was just a plain t-shirt; how good could a t-shirt _actually_ look on someone?

“I washed your suit,” John said, gesturing to the back hall.

“I noticed,” Harold responded. “Thank you.”

John finished the pancakes and poured each of them a coffee. They sat side by side at the counter, eating in companionable silence. Harold’s shoulder brushed against John’s. It felt… right.

“These are wonderful,” Harold said.

John smirked into his coffee cup. “I’m better at pancakes than hot chocolate, I suppose.”

“Nonsense; I’ve never had such delicious hot chocolate in my life.”

Harold looked out the window; the snow was still thick on the windowsill, but it seemed to have stopped. He sighed, his eyes sliding to the clock. It was eight thirty-six.

“Do you have work?” Harold asked.

“I work night shift on Wednesdays,” John told him, bumping his shoulder again.

“Wednesday?”  Harold frowned. “No, it’s Thurs—”

Harold jumped suddenly to his feet, eyes wide. “Oh my god, _I’m_ late! I was supposed to meet Nathan at the office at—oh my, excuse me, I have to—”

Harold got dressed in the bathroom and was still buttoning his shirt, tie haphazardly wrapped around his neck, as he was running to the door. John caught him by the arm, stuttering his stride, and he tried to protest.

“You can’t go out half dressed,” John said calmly, as he buttoned Harold’s vest and Harold tied his own tie. Harold looked up at him, and their eyes met, and for a single, breathtaking moment, Harold though that he was going to lean up and kiss him.

“I have to go,” Harold said, reluctant but hurried, and he dashed to the door, pulling his shoes on and turning around to face John once more. “Thank you for—” _the hot chocolate, the company, breakfast, ironing my suit, giving me your bed, looking at me like I’m the single most beautiful human being you’ve ever laid eyes on_ “—everything.”

John smiled at him. “You’d better get to work, before Nathan panics and thinks you got lost in the storm.”

“I’ll call you,” Harold said, and then he was off running down the hall.


	15. Your very own Prince Charming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course, Nathan recognized the look on his face immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This just in: my fic has been translated into Chinese by the wonderful BellaPotter! I am exceptionally excited by this!

Nathan practically tackled Harold to the ground the minute he stepped through his office door.

“You’ve _never_ been late to work! I called you seven times!”

Harold removed his coat and hung it on the door, sparing Nathan a critical glare. “Are you sure you aren’t _my_ doting husband, Nathan? Seven times? Honestly.”

“I can’t help it; I’d be lost without my darling personal assistant to keep me in line. How is my schedule this afternoon looking, Mr. Wren? Or should I say _Mr. Finch_?”

“Speaking frankly,” Harold sniffed, “I’d prefer you not say anything.”

Nathan eyed Harold up and down with undisguised curiosity. “Isn’t that the same suit you were wearing yesterday?”

Harold glared at him, a slight blush creeping on his cheeks. “You do realize that I own a washing machine?”

“I realize that you didn’t tuck your shirt in,” Nathan retorted. Harold looked down in dismay, fixing himself. “Late morning?”

“I thought it was Thursday,” Harold muttered.

Nathan nodded sagely. “You work with the Machine on Thursdays. Still, you’re not one for getting up much later than six. You’re an early bird, to be sure.” Nathan smirked. “Are you meeting John for lunch?”

“He’ll probably be sleeping, since he’s taking the night shift tonight.”

“Wait, you called John this morning, but you didn’t bother to call me?” Nathan asked, looking hurt. Harold hesitated, because what exactly was he supposed to say? Yes? Lie, and also rude. No? That would require more explanation than Harold was interested in divulging.

Of course, Nathan recognized the look on his face immediately, and he did a double take when he realized that— _oh_ —

“ _That’s_ why you’re wearing the same suit,” Nathan shouted, loudly enough that Harold lunged for the door, slamming it shut before a passerby overheard them. “You _spent the night_! You spent the night _with John_!”

“Stop sounding so scandalized,” Harold said reprovingly. “We didn’t sleep together.”

“Well _SOMETHING_ must have happened,” Nathan said, scooting his wheelie chair across the room to get close to Harold. “Come on, Harold!”

“You’re the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation,” Harold admonished. “Not a middle-schooler!”

“Please please please please please please please—”

“ _All right_.” Harold sighed. “I visited his apartment last night to—to _talk_ , Nathan, stop puckering your lips at me—and when it started snowing, he offered to let me spend the night.”

“Did you sleep in bed together?” Nathan prodded.

“Of course not! He took the couch.”

“Oh, Harold, that’s just cruel. You kicked the man out of his own bed?”

“He insisted!” Harold frowned. “I tried to tell him I could take the couch, but he was… adamant. I forgot to set my phone alarm.”

“And…?”

“…He made pancakes for breakfast.”

Nathan clapped his hands together, clearly delighted. “Oh, Harold, it’s like a fairy tale!” he gushed. “He’s your very own Prince Charming!”

“He’s a very chivalrous young man,” Harold admitted, “who seems entirely taken with me for absolutely no reason whatsoever.”

“Don’t play games with me, Harold,” Nathan warned. “You’re just as taken with him.”

“Did I ever say otherwise?”


	16. Harold and the THNGVBD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He did not wake up with a smile on Thursday morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harold and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Poor Harold; sometimes it just seems like the universe is out to get you.
> 
> (this is officially the longest chapter so far: a whopping 1963 words. Whoopsiethingsgotoutofhand)

Harold didn’t make it home before eleven, so he didn’t get the chance to call John that evening. He resolved to do so the next day in the afternoon, when John would presumably be having lunch. He went to bed on Wednesday night in his own bed, and it didn’t smell as nice as John’s, but he could remember the scent, and fell asleep with a smile on his face.

He did not wake up with a smile on Thursday morning. He awoke, instead, to the sound of loud beeping from the bottom floor at three o’clock AM.

Harold sat up, fumbling for his glasses and phone, and rushed out of the brownstone, the bottom of his t-shirt pulled up to cover his face. That was the carbon monoxide alarm. Why was the carbon monoxide alarm going off? The batteries weren’t dead; Harold had just replaced them two weeks ago. He had enough sense in his weary state to grab his coat and pull it on before he stumbled out the door and out into the street.

He called the fire department first. Then he called Nathan. Nathan answered the phone groggily, like a displeased bear grumbling into the speaker.

“My carbon monoxide alarm is going off,” Harold said, holding himself tightly in defense of the bitter cold.

“Did you call the fire department?” Nathan asked.

“Yes,” Harold said.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Nathan told him.

Harold hung up the phone, put it in his pocket, and shivered. He realized that he’d forgotten his shoes; how inconvenient. The snow was cold on his bare feet; he sat on the stairs and waited for Nathan and the fire department to arrive.

Harold’s day did not improve from there.

It was four-thirty by the time Harold and Nathan returned to Nathan’s home in West Village. Nathan’s couch, Harold decided, was designed entirely for decoration and in no way for comfort, and he gave up after an hour of rolling around on the squeaky leather loveseat and read the first half of Nathan’s copy of _Fahrenheit 451_ until it was time to get ready for work.

He was had no choice but to borrow one of Nathan’s smaller suits, which was both dreadfully embarrassing and frightfully unpleasant, for Harold discovered (later in the day) that he was to no small degree allergic to Nathan’s laundry detergent. He headed to the library in the ill-fitting suit with a cup of too-sweet, decaffeinated coffee and a scowl.

Upon his arrival Harold learned that he had, apparently, left a window open in the library on Tuesday, and not only was the entire second floor as cold as the street, but there was snow. _Everywhere_.

After spending several hours fighting to thaw out the Machine’s hard drive, Harold was ready to leap out the—now closed—window in his frustration. He stared at the bird figurine, slightly frosty but otherwise unharmed, still sitting on his desk. It calmed him—but only slightly. He turned the heater up to its highest setting and bundled himself up, scratched his arms and neck thoroughly, and left for lunch.

The owner of the coffee and tea cart he usually visited wasn’t on its usual corner, so Harold bought another coffee. This one was horribly bitter, and the cheese bagel he’d bought with it looked very much like it had mold on it. He threw it away as soon as he rounded the corner on his way to the main IFT building; he couldn’t think about the Machine’s doubtlessly damaged hard drive any longer, or he’d explode.

He spent the rest of the day doing mindless work for his cover as a secretary, accidentally deleted Nathan’s entire work schedule for the next _year_ —the kind of mistake he hadn’t made since high school—and rewrote it. Then the computer system crashed, just as he was about to save, and he had to retype the months June through September _again_ when the IT department finally got it back online.

He would have rebooted the system himself, but by then the terrible itching all over his body had grown unbearable, and he took a break to rush to the nearest clothing store to purchase a cheap dress shirt and slacks. On his way back to the office, a man with a cotton candy smoothie—of all the _ridiculous_ —ran into him, spilling the pink and blue slush down the new shirt. He didn’t care. He returned to the office and sat down at his desk, and began typing.

Nathan peered around the corner cautiously into Harold’s office a few minutes later. He saw Harold, took stock, and pulled his head back into the hall without a word.

John came to visit Harold around six-thirty that evening.

He jumped at the sound of the knock on the door, looking up from his code to see John standing in the doorframe, a soft smile on his face and a cup in his hand. A cup of tea.

By the time he had gotten to his feet, John had seen the shirt, as well as the crumpled suit on the floor, and Harold was under no illusions about the state of his hair and the ludicrously large purple bags hanging beneath his eyes, so it was of little surprise that John’s expression had changed to one of unbridled concern.

“Harold, are you alright?” John asked, as Harold took the cup from him and took a long, relived drink.

“Where did you find this?” Harold asked, after he’d downed half the cup but before he was cognizant enough to realize how close John was standing.

“I saw your regular tea stand on the corner of twenty-ninth,” John said, as Harold guzzled the rest of the tea and John looked him up and down. “What happened?”

“Rough day,” Harold sighed, turning around to pull up his chair and sit down. He noticed John’s eyes rove across the desk, then suddenly snap back up to stare intently at him, mouth forming an unusually straight line.

“You didn’t call yesterday,” John said. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to visit. Or if you were working from home.”

“Oh yes, I was working late last night. Honestly, I’ve been very busy today I entirely forgot—”

“Of course,” John said stiffly. “I don’t want to disturb you. I should probably go, actually.”

Harold blinked. “So soon?”

“Yeah, I… I left the lights on in the kitchen this morning, I think,” John said, which was quite possibly the most badly formed lie Harold had ever heard uttered to him in his life.

“John, what’s wrong?” Harold asked.

“The—it’s nothing,” John shook his head, frowning. “I’m sorry, it’s nothing.” And then he was gone from sight, out the door and down the hall so abruptly Harold thought for a moment that perhaps he hadn’t been there at all. But there was an empty cup on his desk and he wasn’t so socially inept not to realize that something was very wrong, and before he could stop himself he was on his feet, rushing to the elevator.

He saw John when he reached the lobby, but didn’t catch him until they were out on the street in front of IFT, and when he finally was close enough to get a hand on John’s forearm the man practically ripped his arm out of his grip.

“John, what’s going on?” Harold asked, alarmed. John was staring downward, at the snowy pavement, with a dark expression on his face.

“If you want me to back off, I will,” John said, so quietly that Harold was almost certain that he’d misheard.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” John said. “I’m not good at—knowing where to draw the line. Things usually… move faster than this. And end faster. We’ve been—we haven’t been doing anything, actually, so it isn’t really right for me to do this to you.”

“Do _what_ to me, John?” Harold asked, now frantic, because the look on John’s face, the sadness in his eyes—what was happening?

“I should never have gotten you that bird,” John said, and that stung, like a physical blow, and Harold couldn’t find the ability to reply. “I should have known you—you’re more interested in other intellectuals than people like me.”

 _People like him?_ What on earth was that supposed to mean?

“I know I must have made you very uncomfortable the past few weeks,” John said, and he looked ashamed, and embarrassed, and he kicked at the ground weakly. “I know I’m overbearing when it comes to this sort of thing. I don’t—I don’t know how to treat people without scaring them away. And I really don’t want to scare you, Harold.”

“Well you _are_ ,” Harold snapped, grabbing his hand as it fell from his pocket. “John, why are you so worried about how I’m feeling, all of a sudden?”

“The bird,” John said quietly, eyes downcast.

And suddenly Harold realized—the bird was in the library. It wasn’t on the desk in his office, where John had been looking for it. What did he think… oh, dear…

“The bird was too much,” John said, like he was agreeing with something Harold had said to him. “It’s all been too much. You should get back to work.”

He tried to remove his hand from Harold’s grip. Harold tightened his fingers automatically. “John, _stop it_. I have dried smoothie all over my shirt and my fingers ache from typing all day, I’ve had less than three hours sleep in the past twenty-four hours and it does _not_ look pretty I’m sure, and my head aches and the project I’ve been working on for the past decade might be ruined, and I haven’t eaten all day and I’m about ninety percent sure that I have a rash on my back from Nathan’s laundry detergent—and there is absolutely no one on this planet that could possibly make this day better other than you.”

And it was true, every word, so shockingly true that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t kissed John yesterday morning when he’d wanted to. Well, better late than never.

He pulled John down and kissed him.

His glasses were knocked immediately askew and their noses collided awkwardly, but the first thing Harold noticed was the rough drag of stubble across his face, followed by soft, cold lips and a slightly muffled sound from the man whose shirt he was crumpling in his tight grasp. He tilted his head, and John sighed into him, a weight lifting from his shoulders as his hands came to rest on Harold’s elbows. Harold flattened his hands on John’s chest and just stood there, the frigid wind fading away into the background where nothing really mattered, with John’s lips on his, warm body pressing against him.

They separated from the chaste kiss, lips mere inches apart, wispy breath trading between them. Harold gazed up at John, and John’s eyes sparkled back.

“So, in conclusion, I am extremely happy that you bought me that bird,” Harold said, once he regained control of his breathing. “It’s somewhere I hold much dearer to my heart than my office desk at IFT.” He snorted, like the idea was preposterous.

John was smiling again, and Harold wanted it to stay on his face forever because seeing his divine features without it there just might be enough to break Harold’s heart, especially after the wretched day he’d had.

“I’m sorry I overreacted,” John said, although he clearly wasn’t sorry at all in that moment. Neither was Harold. He touched his hand to his lips, and the sparkle in John’s eyes intensified with good cheer.

And, Harold supposed, perhaps that made the altogether horrible day absolutely, entirely worth the trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And lo, the long anticipated first kiss! Things are very likely to NOT pick up speed in their relationship from here. We still have a looooooong way to go.


	17. Harold's Predicament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan nearly spat out his hoagie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop. Who knows how long it takes to redo the plumbing in a New York townhouse? Not me. Let's say a week.

As it turned out, the water heater was the appliance in question that caused the carbon monoxide leak in Harold’s townhouse. Though he was able to retrieve his clothes and laptop from the house, the fire department deemed that until he could have the heater replaced and the house’s plumbing redone by a certified technician, it simply wouldn’t be safe for him to remain alone in the building. Harold wasn’t very interested in living in a house without warm running water for the next week, anyway.

Nathan came to visit him at the library Friday afternoon with a bagged hoagie and a bottled water.

“Knock knock,” he said, and Harold poked his head out from underneath the desk.                       

“Ah, Nathan,” Harold said, getting to his feet. He was somewhat disheveled, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top buttons on his coat undone; however, considering the state he’d been in yesterday at the same time, he probably looked fantastic.

“I brought lunch,” Nathan said, handing Harold the hoagie and water and flopping down in Harold’s chair. “How’s it coming?”

“Well, the motherboard seems relatively undamaged,” Harold said, “And it doesn’t seem like anything’s been corrupted beyond repair. It seems the Machine receded as deeply into itself as it could during the storm.”

“Smart,” Nathan said.

“Don’t say that,” Harold said, tetchily. “It’s a computer. It can’t _be_ smart.”

“You’re the one who gave it a _moral code_ , Harold.”

“We’ve had this circular debate a hundred times,” Harold sighed, cracking the seal on the water bottle and taking a sip. “I highly doubt today will be the day we convince the other we’re wrong.”

“Well, if you don’t want to talk about your unintelligent matchmaking machine,” Nathan said, ignoring Harold’s scathing glare, “then let’s talk about living arrangements. How is this going to work, you staying at my place for the next week?”

Harold tried not to frown at the thought. He loved Nathan, he really did, and despite living primarily in a townhouse he rather preferred an apartment with a view than a big brownstone, but Nathan’s apartment was… cold. Too cramped. It in no way reflected the big, cuddly man that lived inside, and to be perfectly honest, Harold couldn’t stand spending an extended amount of time in it. A few hours was bearable, but a week? And a week sleeping on Nathan’s uncomfortable leather couch was not something he would be looking forward to.

“I was… thinking about perhaps a hotel,” Harold said, and Nathan nearly spat out his hoagie.

“Harold, come on; you hate hotels.”

“Not really.”

“You think they’re dirty.”

“Hotels have beds,” Harold pointed out, “And privacy.”

“You have plenty of privacy here. Why don’t we just blow up an airbed and you can stay here?”

Now that sounded almost worse than a hotel. Harold liked the library, very much, but not enough to _sleep_ there. And anyway, he knew Nathan was joking.

“Well…”

“…Well?” Harold echoed, frowning. “What do you suggest?”

Nathan smiled, a sweet, plotting smile. “ _Well_ , I can think of off the top of my head a rather dapper security guard who might not mind shacking up with you for a few days.”

“No, Nathan, absolutely not,” Harold shook his head vehemently at the suggestion.

“Why not?”

Harold frowned at him. “Because I’ve already intruded too far in John’s life, and it would be completely inappropriate for me to ask to stay the week with him.”

“Jesus, Harold, don’t you get it? That boy would worship the ground you walked on if you let him. Besides, I thought you told me that the two of you finally _locked lips_ last night.”

“One kiss doesn’t mean he’d be willing to let me _move in_ with him,” Harold snapped, color rushing to his cheeks. “I should never have told you.”

“You absolutely should have! Come on Harold: buy the kid dinner. Ask him if you can stay with him the next few days while they fix your plumbing. It’s _literally_ the complete truth.  What’s the harm?”

“He could say no,” Harold replied immediately. Nathan grinned.

Or, Harold thought, with no small amount of terror, he could say yes.


	18. Bella Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Oh, this is the night, such a beautiful night  
>  and they call it Bella Note_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> youtube.

He met John for dinner at the same restaurant they’d eaten at during their first engagement. Harold tried to convince himself that it had nothing to do with trying to butter John up, nor with the recent step forward in their relationship after so many weeks of—what Harold supposed was—casual flirting.

The kiss. The kiss still had him rattled—in the absolute best way possible; but still, rattled. He waited on the street corner for John to arrive, and when he did they were led to a table in the back, where the overall romanticism of the restaurant was suddenly put into perspective: white candles, pastel flowers, low lights. Harold took his seat stiffly, John across from him and examining the menu thoroughly.

“Would you like to split a dinner?” John asked, and a soft smile crossed Harold’s lips.

“Are you sure you won’t eat it all yourself?”

John grinned. “I promise.”

They ordered a spaghetti and meatball dinner, with sparkling white wine. Harold watched John inhale the starter salad, then glance up at him with sparkling eyes before he lowered his fork and slowed down for the main course. Harold shook his head in mock despair, neatly twirling his fork through the angel hair pasta.

Near the bottom of the plate they ended up catching a few of the same noodles, and John immediately relinquished them. He nudged the remaining meatball on his side of the plate towards Harold, as well, despite the way he’d been eyeing it with particular interest. Harold pushed the meatball back.

“You can have it,” Harold said, under no false impressions that John wasn’t merely being polite in offering him the food. With only the faintest reluctance, John devoured the meatball.

Well; now was the time to ask. Harold wavered, nervously; the last thing he wanted to do was put John on the spot, but he felt as though that was exactly what he was doing. Perhaps an air mattress in the library wouldn’t be that bad. He could survive a week. It really wouldn’t be a problem.

“Is everything okay?” John asked, reaching across the table and touching the back of his hand. “You look nervous.”

Harold immediately took John’s hand, a welcome reassurance. John smiled at him, and Harold smiled weakly back.

“I told you about the carbon monoxide leak in the other night,” Harold said.

“Yes,” John agreed, his hand tightening minutely around Harold’s. “You said you stayed with Nathan last night.”

“I did,” Harold agreed. “Unfortunately, the trouble with the water heater seems to stem from the entire plumbing system not having been properly maintained; my building will have to be entirely renovated over the next week.”

“I’m sorry,” John said. “So… you’ll be staying with Nathan for the week?”

“Well,” Harold said, staring at their interwoven hands. “Nathan’s apartment isn’t built for—well, you’ve seen it. For a man with his own company, his apartment is frightfully small; not to mention his couch is ridiculously uncomfortable.” John’s thumb, now, was making circles along Harold’s palm, and it was thoroughly distracting him from why he should be feeling nervous about asking John for a favor.

“You can stay with me,” John said immediately, and Harold grasped his hand, startled, relived, and terrified at once.

“I was going to ask you,” Harold responded, leaning forward. “I wasn’t trying to skirt the question. I just… wasn’t sure how to approach it.”

“Then I’ll approach it,” John said firmly, with a tone that suggested he would come running at it screaming with a baseball bat, if that’s what was necessary to convince Harold. “You’re staying with me. My couch is a lot more comfortable than Nathan’s, anyway.”

“Oh, John,” Harold sighed, slumping back. “Do you realize how wonderful you are?”

“You must bring that out in me,” John said, his eyes sparkling.

“…Desert?” Harold asked, after a pleasant moment of silence between them. “My treat, of course.”

“If you insist.”

Harold discovered that cutting chocolate cake was surprisingly difficult with one hand. He also discovered that, with his other being softly caressed by John’s long, graceful fingers, he didn’t care.


	19. A Slower Move, A Sweeter End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was simply… perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John is a big bowl of self-conscious mush and I love him probably almost as much as Harold does

Nathan helped Harold move his clothes and computer equipment into John’s apartment late that evening; there was more than enough room for Harold’s belongings in the apartment, and John was eager to make sure that Harold felt settled and welcome from the moment he stepped through the door. After insisting upon a brief tour before he went, Harold managed to get Nathan out of the apartment with notably little fuss, and he actively ignored the rapid winking and eyebrow waggling the man shot at him on his way out into the hall.

Then they were alone.

“I’m taking the couch,” Harold said, before John could argue, and promptly sat down on it with his arms crossed decisively over his chest.

John arched a playful eyebrow at him. “You know I can pick you up and carry you to the bedroom if I have to.”

“You sound rather sure of yourself,” Harold said, casually disregarding the amount of suggestion in the statement.

He smiled. “I am.”

Harold sniffed. “John, really; it’s your bed. It’s your _apartment_.” And a very nice one, Harold thought to himself. “I refuse to allow you to sleep on your own couch for a whole week. I’ll be fine; it’s actually rather comfortable.” He bounced on the soft sofa cushions lightly, to make his point.

John smiled helplessly while Harold continued to stare back at him, unabashed and determined not to allow the other man to sacrifice his bed to him again.

After a long stretch of silence, John relented with a sigh. “Alright, Harold. You can take the couch.”

“Thank you,” Harold said. John shook his head affectionately.

Harold stood up. “If possible, I’d very much like to take a shower.”

“Of course.” John gave him a towel from the closet, plush and white, and led him to the bathroom. “Help yourself to the soap.”

“I will.” Harold smiled wryly at him, and was reminded by John’s slightly wavering smile of what he’d said that night. _Things usually… move faster than this._

He was nervous. About being slow with Harold. But, at the same time, he seemed rather determined to continue to be. Being more comfortable himself with a slow, steady progression, Harold was happy for it.

 “I’ll just…” John shrugged, sliding awkwardly back down the hall, and Harold nodded, shuffling into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him.

He’d only gone so far as to strip off his tie when there was sudden loud, frantic knocking on the door.

“Harold! Are you—are you still dressed?”

“It’s only been fifteen seconds, John,” Harold replied, turning around to open the door for him. “Is something wrong?”

“I forgot to tell you about the faucet,” John said, sheepishly. “It’s kind of finicky. May I…?”

“Of course,” Harold said, stepping out of his way and gesturing at the shower. “By all means.”

“You have to turn the right handle all the way,” John explained, kneeling down to tap the knob. “And wait until it gets hot. Then turn the other one in, until it’s the right temperature. I think that’s—wait, do you like black cherry? I have this face scrub; I don’t really like how it feels when I use it, but it smells nice.” He crawled over to the sink and opened the cabinet. “You can try it, if you want.”

He stood back up with the bottle in his hand, and turned to face Harold. Harold was gazing at him with undisguised care and amazement, because it just didn’t make any sense.

_Things usually… move faster than this. And end faster._

Harold couldn’t for the life of him imagine why someone would want to end a relationship with this man. He was simply… perfect.

“I’ll try it, thank you,” Harold said quietly, taking the bottle. John stared at him for a moment longer, as if trying to puzzle together Harold’s suddenly tender attitude, before he nodded.

“I’ll probably be in bed when you get out—early shift tomorrow. So…” he shrugged, uncertainly.

Harold stepped forward, kissed him lightly on the lips, and withdrew. John smiled, starry-eyed, and wished Harold goodnight again before exiting the bathroom and shutting the door.

Harold tried the face scrub during his shower, and found that it made his skin strangely tingly—but it did smell quite pleasant. He rinsed himself off and toweled dry, dressing in his pajamas and padding back to the living room—the couch was made with a pillow and blanket, the small bedside lamp John had had in his room moved to the coffee table. Underneath it was a filled glass of water.

_Things usually… move faster than this._

_And end faster._

Harold curled up underneath the thick comforter and closed his eyes, hoping that this feeling would never end.


	20. Domesticity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harold had gotten the feeling from the very beginning that John was unused to abundant amounts of avid affection, and he’d made it his own personal mission to rectify this egregious error by the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i gotta go somewhere for a thing so im posting this chapter early. tooth-rotting fluff with no dialogue ftw

Harold’s alarm woke him from a dream of John kissing his forehead and handing him a piece of his heart to keep. He blinked awake, reaching for his glasses and cell phone, when he suddenly realized that there _was_ something in his hand. He sat up, looked down at it; a small, folded up piece of paper. He unfolded it.

_Have a nice day at work. My shift ends at three. Late lunch?_

Harold smiled privately; there was something ridiculously endearing about John’s little habit of note-passing. His handwriting was sleek, slanted and rushed but simplistic and easy to make out. Was he left handed? Harold had a feeling that he was, or at least that he favored the left. He folded the note back up, placed it in his pocket.

He examined the contents of John’s kitchen cabinets and found them to be in a far better state of affairs than his own; he managed to find a box of granola cereal and poured himself a hefty bowl for breakfast.

He washed out the bowl thoroughly before placing it on the shelf with the others, and turned around to find himself caught by the awe-inspiring view. The expansive living room, light-filled windows, hard wood floors—it was the kind of apartment he’d wanted when he first came to New York. Beautiful, modern, conveniently designed—he shook himself, turning out the door to catch the subway.

John and Harold met for lunch at the same vendor they’d visited before. This time, Harold insisted on paying for their meals, in spite of John’s protests. They ate on the park bench, talked of Shakespeare, Kafka, and Kahlo (though Harold knew substantially less of the latter than the two former, John was happy to indulge his inquiries) and before they realized it Harold was late to return to work.

Harold returned to John’s apartment just in time for dinner. They ordered Vietnamese takeout from Harold’s favorite restaurant, and argued over movie titles until they finally settled on Gattaca, which was thoroughly enjoyable and interesting, if somewhat depressing at the end. They talked for another few hours until Harold couldn’t quite suppress a yawn, and John insisted on leaving him to get some rest. He stood up, pressed a light kiss on Harold’s forehead, and squeezed his hand affectionately before he turned in himself.

The next day, Harold and John prepared for work at the same time. Harold insisted that John help decide which tie he should wear (the burgundy or the grey-spotted; John chose the burgundy) and they had eggs Benedict at the kitchen table before sharing a taxi to the park and parting with a gentle, yet purposefully intense hug. Harold had gotten the feeling from the very beginning that John was unused to abundant amounts of avid affection, and he’d made it his own personal mission to rectify this egregious error by the universe. John stumbled out of it slightly dazed and grinning widely, and Harold considered the act a success.

Harold couldn’t meet John for lunch, supposedly due to an impromptu meeting at IFT regarding the recent update in international trading in the company—the meeting was real, of course, but Harold was not in attendance; he was back at the library, working on the Machine. He didn’t like lying to John, even if it was for his own protection, but he didn’t exactly have another option. John’s smile when he walked through the apartment door late that evening was enough to melt away the small, biting guilt in the back of his mind.

They ate leftovers from John’s refrigerator and watched Reign Over Me on the couch. Harold fell asleep around eight thirty, his head nestled softly between John’s shoulder and neck.


	21. You Could've Just Asked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “John, I don’t know about this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was forced to watch a horror movie last night and it was HORRIBLE I hate watching horror movies I am weak and easily stressed out by psychological terror movies so I mean apparently its a pretty good movie if you're into that (WHICH I AM NOT I MAY HAVE CRIED) so in order to comfort myself I wrote this tiny drabble in my fear-induced state. Hope it's okay.

The movie was called The Descent, and had Harold realized before John put it into the player and sat down beside him on the couch that it was a horror film, he would have vehemently refused to watch it.

“John, I don’t know about this,” Harold said plaintively.

“Don’t worry,” John assured him, “If you get scared, I’ll be right here.”

“Honestly,” Harold sighed at him irritably, settling against John’s side with John’s arm draped over his shoulders, pulling him close.

“Everything’s going to be alright, Harold.”

-

John left just after the bat scene to make popcorn, though Harold had the feeling that it had less to do with being hungry and more with being sick and tired of Harold’s continuous protests about the deaths of Sarah’s husband and daughter—to be fair, their deaths were _entirely_ ludicrous.

Then she got stuck in the tunnel, and in the middle of her panic attack he abruptly raised his voice. “Are you sure you don’t want me to pause the movie until you get back?”

“No, it’s alright,” John said. “I can see the tv from here.”

“Did they just get stuck in the cave?”

“Yes.”

“…Is she going to _climb_ over that chasm? With her bare hands?”

“Harold, just relax and watch the movie.”

John returned as Juno began to climb over the gaping abyss to collect the tools, and Harold immediately grabbed the bowl from his grasp.

“Sit down,” Harold ordered, and wedged himself firmly back under John’s arm. John smirked, taking a handful of popcorn and munching it down.

The movie progressed with Holly breaking a leg, a scene which Harold had his head buried against John’s shoulder, wincing with each crunch and pained scream.

“Ah Harold, look, this is the cool part,” John said, and Harold looked up to see the piles of bones and then—

“ _Oh my god,_ ” Harold shrieked, grabbing John’s arm and practically throwing himself into the other man. “Turn it off turn it off turn it off turn it off—”

“Okay, okay,” John said, grabbing the remote and shutting the movie off. “Are you alright?”

“No,” Harold shouted, face muffled against John’s chest. “I am absolutely not alright. Don’t you _dare_ do that to me again. _Why on earth would you want to watch such a horrific movie??_ ”

John looked sheepish. “Well…”

Harold suddenly realized the extent of which he was sprawled across the other man, and immediately flushed. “If you wanted to cuddle with me, you could have just said so.”

John brightened immediately, and as much as Harold wanted to be angry with him, it was hard to feel anything but relief as he settled into the warm grip of the other man’s arms around his body, the soft _bu-bump_ of his heart beating rhythmically in his chest, beneath Harold’s cheek.

“I’d much rather watch _Some Kind of Wonderful_ , hokey as it may be—at least it won’t give me nightmares for the next month.”

“It’s alright, Harold,” John soothed, stroking his thumb across Harold’s forearm reassuringly. “It’s all over now.”

“You’re the one that turned the thing on in the first place,” Harold scolded, flicking a piece of popcorn into John’s face.


	22. Made for Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wow; hey, take things a little slower, okay? He might think all you want from him is that sweet, sweet body.”

And so on went the next several days, until almost a week had passed, and Harold knew that soon, he would be going back to his own place. It wasn’t quite as much of a relief as he had expected it would be; he’d anticipated being anxious to return to his townhouse and retake some of the privacy he’d lost sharing an apartment with John. But John had done everything in his power to make sure that Harold had all the space he could want, and Harold often found himself wandering the apartment in search of him, instead of the other way around. He enjoyed spending time with the other man, at every possible spare moment. Watching television, cooking dinner, anything that John suggested—Harold wanted to do it.

Nathan, of course, wouldn’t let him hear the end of it.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you this happy for this long in my entire life,” Nathan said to him one day at the office, after informing Harold with a gentle tease that his intense, unyielding smile might have frightened away the intern that brought Nathan his coffee.

“I don’t know if I ever have been,” Harold confessed, shaking his head in wonderment and sipping his tea. “Honestly, Nathan, being around him is like… sometimes it feels like I’m just _floating_.”

“Have you slept with him yet?” Nathan asked.

“No, Nathan, I have not.”

“Wow; hey, take things a little slower, okay? He might think all you want from him is that sweet, sweet body.”

“You know, for a straight man, you certainly seem to have an interest in John’s physique,” Harold pointed out, and Nathan smirked.

“I’m not _blind,_ Harold. And anyway, even if I wasn’t straight, I promise on my own life I’d never go after your man.”

“I appreciate the reassurance,” Harold said sarcastically. “It’s good to know you aren’t about to sprint off to the museum to try and woo my boyfriend.”

“Aww, Harold, your _boyfriend_ ,” Nathan cooed, and Harold blushed slightly.

“Of course he is; what else would he be?”

“Nothing. It’s just cute to hear you admit it.”

“I think I forewent any ability to deny my relationship with him when I kissed him in front of the company building and moved into his apartment,” Harold snapped, attempting to maintain an air of passive irritability, but he couldn’t stop himself from grinning, and when Nathan began listing off the (apparently extensive) list of reasons why Harold and John were ‘ _just MADE for each other_ ’, Harold somehow couldn’t convince himself to argue with him.


	23. Two of Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Harold, are you—”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because it's the two of hearts they're really looking for. tickle!fic. you've been waiting for it

“Erm… three of spades?”

“Go fish,” John said, with an unnecessarily devious smirk.

“Are you sure you aren’t cheating?” Harold asked, eyeing John’s hand suspiciously. “I don’t remember being quite _this_ bad at cards.”

The snow had started back up around eleven, and the museum closed early; Harold had abruptly decided to take a half day, and since he was part owner of the company he could do as he well pleased, even if it was solely to spend the afternoon with John. They made hot chocolate—this time with packets, because it was much less likely to go awry—and sat on the couch with a deck of cards, reminiscing with childhood games and arguing over a suitable reward for winning. Nothing Harold was actually confident in offering seemed to come to mind.

“Maybe you’re just having an off day,” John suggested, grazing a finger along the underside of Harold’s socked foot. Harold yanked it away, stifling a giggle and burying his nose in his cards.

“Your turn,” he said quickly, looking up at John. He seemed offended and maybe a little hurt by Harold’s reaction, until a slow realization seemed to dawn on him, and he arched an eyebrow.

“Harold, are you—” He started.

“It’s _your turn_ ,” Harold interrupted, focusing intently on his cards.

“Queen of Diamonds,” John said, casually scooting closer to him.

Harold immediately scooted away, flicking the card at John. “How on _earth_ did you know that? You have to be cheating.”

“How do you cheat at Go Fish?” John asked.

Harold frowned, opening his mouth to reply, but he was suddenly tackled backwards onto the couch, cards thrown carelessly into the air and fluttering about the living room.

“John, this isn’t fair!” Harold shouted, his protest fizzling into a helpless spray of giggles as he clung to John’s shirt and was ravaged by the man’s relentless onslaught, long fingers tickling Harold’s flank as he was pinned, defenseless, against the sofa. He could feel the warmth of John’s smile pressing into the side of his neck, hot breath as he laughed with Harold, card game forgotten. Everything forgotten, except that moment, with John spread out on top of him, and Harold holding onto him tightly.

Suddenly, Harold’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket, and he fought to gasp in a breath of air to cry out, “John, stop!”

Reluctantly, John receded, allowing Harold to sit up, red-faced and panting, so he could answer his phone.

“Hello?”

John snuggled his head underneath Harold’s chin, tracing light, teasing patterns over his chest. Harold swatted him away, scooting to the far edge of the couch.

“What kind of problem? What—the whole house?”

Harold frowned, listening to the voice on the other end of the line. “How long will it take to repair the damage? … _Four_ _weeks_? No—no, it’s quite alright. We can discuss price later. Thank you for the call.”

Harold hung up the phone and stared at it.

“Harold?” John murmured, a hand coming to rest cautiously on his arm. “Is everything alright?”

“There’s been a—a bit of a problem with the plumbing at the brownstone, it seems,” Harold explained, turning around to look at John. “More precisely, the entire system has to be redone. My contractor just informed me that there has to be another month of repairs until the house is livable again. I’m terribly sorry about this; I had no idea this was going to happen, John, I promise you.”

“Harold, you can stay here as long as you want,” John told him seriously, and with such intensity that Harold’s breath caught in his throat.

“Oh, John. Thank you,” Harold said, resting the most gossamer of touches on John’s chest.

He suddenly pushed John roughly down on his back, and John’s surprised gasp was immediately quashed by his own uproarious laughter as Harold tickled him ruthlessly. He pulled Harold against him and they laid, entwined together and at each other’s mercy, and Harold forgot completely about the townhouse.


	24. A Bear of A Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How do you get a dog by accident??”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to; I just had to.

A few days later, Harold answered his work phone to be met on the other end of the line by ragged breathing and the question “Are you allergic to dogs?”

“What?” Harold asked, startled.

“Are you allergic to dogs?” John repeated. Muffled, Harold suddenly realized that the unusual noise behind John’s voice was actually the sound of something barking.

“Er, no,” Harold said.

“Okay,” John said. “So, when are you getting off work?”

“Should I come over now?” Harold asked, somewhat alarmed.

“No, no, after work is fine—I’ll see you around dinner? Takeout? I’ll see you at the apartment.”

Harold looked blankly at the phone in his hand, and Nathan’s chair rolled into his office from the hall.

“No trouble in paradise, I hope,” Nathan inquired casually.

“I don’t think so,” Harold replied. “I suppose I’ll find out after work.”

-

When Harold returned to John’s apartment he was met at the door by a large, chocolate-eyed Belgian Malinois puppy. Or, to be more accurate, he was nearly bowled over by a large, chocolate-eyed Belgian Malinois puppy.

“Harold!”

John rushed to the door and pulled the slobbering beast back into the apartment. Harold stumbled in after them and shut the door, fumbling to straighten his glasses and smooth down his bunched up waistcoat. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Harold said, staring at him where he sat on the floor, vainly attempting to hold the dog at arm’s length. “When did you get a _dog?_ ”

“This afternoon,” John said. “It was an accident.”

“How do you get a dog by accident??”

“Well, he was just out there, all alone on the street—I couldn’t just leave him.”

Harold watched, helplessly, as John gave up trying to keep the animal at bay and was knocked on his back.

“I’m sorry,” John said, once he’d managed to escape his captor and was back on his feet, gazing down at Harold with wide, apologetic eyes. “If you don’t like him…”

“I’m not much of a dog person,” Harold said stiffly, edging away from the dog’s eager snout. “But it certainly isn’t going to drive me away, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Apparently it was, for John’s shoulders sagged in relief, and he swept Harold up into his arms and pulled him in for a soft, warm kiss.

“Mmfph—you’re _covered_ in dog slobber,” Harold groused, wiping his mouth feverishly and pulling away. “Did you order dinner yet?”

“Should be on its way now,” John said. The Malinois shoved plaintively at Harold’s legs, knocking him off balance, and he found himself stumbling backwards. He was caught by a firm arm. He looked up, wide-eyed and blushing, and John beamed at him.

“That thing isn’t a dog, it’s a _bear_ ,” Harold growled, and John smirked.

“I’m sure you’ll get used to him.”

“I suppose I don’t have much of a choice,” Harold sighed. The dog barked loudly in agreement.


	25. Breaking Boundaries and Beating Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John hesitated, and for a moment Harold thought John was going to ask something absurd—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rough day; sorry for the late update. tomorrow will probably be late too bc i'll be busy all day
> 
> i have no idea what to name this chapter. ideas?

After several more minutes of Harold’s unrelenting nagging, John finally conceded to taking a shower before their food arrived.

Harold took a seat on the couch and picked up the remote, but before he could so much as turn on the screen, his lap was suddenly occupied. He started in fright, and struggled to remove the large—and rather heavy—canine, but he was resistant, and after a few moments Harold was forced to let out a cry for help.

“ _John_!”

John came running out of the bathroom, hair soapy and wrapped in a towel, and started to laugh.

“He weighs a _ton_ ,” Harold muttered, immediately looking away from John’s bare, dripping chest as color rose to his cheeks.

“Here,” John said, approaching the couch. He leaned down and effortlessly plucked the massive pup off of Harold and placed him gently on the floor. Harold stood up and primly straightened himself out, glaring at the floor.

“Thank you very much. You may return to your shower now.”

“Are you okay?” John asked, eyeing Harold.

He looked up at the man, his gaze lowering to stare at John’s naked torso until he managed to rip them away with a tersely muttered “I’m fine”.

“Are you?” Harold looked up to meet John’s eyes, sparkling with amusement, and he pouted.

“Yes. Go finish up and get dressed, before the food gets here.”

John hesitated, and for a moment Harold thought John was going to ask something absurd—

“Okay,” John said softly, and disappeared back down the hall. Harold aimed a scorned glower at the dog, who only peeked back up at him with innocent brown eyes.

-

John returned to the main room several minutes later, clad in his pajamas and sparkling clean. Harold had all but given up on forcing Bear to remain on the floor, and gave John a long-suffering look as the dog stretched luxuriously beside him.

“Your turn,” John said.

Harold shook his head. “Dinner should be arriving shortly. I prefer my meals warm, personally.”

John was looking at him in that way he always did, the way that made Harold feel entirely too special and profound to deal with, and he stood up. “Shall we eat at the table? There doesn’t seem to be room on the couch.”

-

After dinner had arrived and been eaten, and the leftovers neatly cleaned up and stacked in the sterling silver refrigerator that dominated the kitchenette, they stood side by side in front of the couch and stared at the sleeping mass of dog sprawled across it.

“Maybe I should get a dog bed for him,” John said thoughtfully, as Harold sighed.

“Would it be so horrible to just have him sleep on the floor?”

The half-panicked, heartbroken look on John’s face indicated that, yes, it would be _quite_ horrible. “Oh, John, please stop that. He doesn’t have to sleep on the floor—but I am by no means sharing the couch with him. _You_ can sleep with him.”

“Yeah, I can sleep with the dog. Or…” John shrugged, then looked at Harold through hooded eyes. Harold felt his heart stutter. “Unless you prefer the couch.”

“Well…” He looked down at Bear, snoring soundly, then back up to John. He flashed back accidentally to earlier that evening, with John shirtless and glistening in front of him, and scrambled to quash the growing desire in the pit of his stomach. He was helpless, however, against John’s hopeful, angelic gaze, and bit his lip. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” John said quietly.

Harold nodded, gathering up his cell phone and laptop from the coffee table. “Bear’s already covered the comforter in hair, anyway.”

-

Harold showered and joined John in the bedroom, and decided immediately two things: firstly, he wouldn’t be getting _any_ of the work he’d planned on doing finished that evening. Secondly, he should not at all be surprised that John slept in his boxers. He did however, Harold thought with a twinge of mixed relief and vague disappointment, opt to keep his t-shirt on.

They got into bed, and Harold set his alarm, and John’s too. He removed his glasses and pulled the covers up and laid on his side, facing away from John, feeling stiff and awkward. The bed he had experienced before—laying in it was both familiar and pleasant. The person beside him, however, was new, and quite terrifying.

John turned off the lights and rolled, and Harold wondered if he too was facing away. He also wondered, briefly, if he was overreacting to sharing a bed with John. He’d shared a hotel bed with Nathan once, after all, just after college—that had been quite a trip. Nathan snored. Loudly.

This, of course, was vastly different. Harold wasn’t _attracted_ to Nathan.

After a stretch of silence that could have been several minutes or half an hour for all Harold had been paying attention, there was the soft sound of covers rustling behind him, and the warm press of a hand on his waist made him stiffen, caught off guard.

He didn’t flinch away, and John’s hand remained in place as he slid closer, his other arm snaking under Harold’s pillow. Harold lifted his head just slightly, making room. John’s chest was pressed against his back, breath hot but gentle on his neck, and he willed his heart to stop beating so viciously against his chest.

“Is this okay?” John whispered, his voice like silk against the shell of Harold’s ear, and his eyes fluttered shut.

“Yes,” Harold whispered back. John curled into him, firm and secure at his back and they both let out a deep, contented breath.


	26. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “An unlikely event occurring twice is merely a coincidence.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm temporarily changing the rating of this fic from 'general' to 'teen and up' because... well, you'll see.
> 
> i say temporarily because, in the future, it will most certainly be far beyond 'teen and up'. how far into the future? who can really say?

Harold was the type of person to rise directly with his alarm; he never hit snooze, never laid in bed staring at the ceiling, willing himself to get up. He simply did.

That morning, his alarm blared, and he reached out for it, pressed the snooze button three times, and pulled John’s retreating arm back around his waist.

“We have to get ready for work,” John said, sleepy and faintly amused.

“Fifteen minutes,” Harold muttered against the pillow. He felt John shift, pressing his forehead against the nape of Harold’s neck and tightening his grip lightly. Harold could feel the ripple of muscles in John’s arms; he must exercise regularly. And profusely. Did the apartment building have a gym nearby? He hadn’t had the time to investigate the possibility.

When the alarm went off again, Harold let out a soft, displeased whine. John chuckled softly behind him, nuzzling his hairline, and it sent pleasant tingles down Harold’s spine.

“It’s time,” John whispered, and Harold whined again.

“Haven’t you ever been late to work before?” Harold demanded, heatlessly.

“No,” John replied. “Have you? Aside from the last time you spent the night in my bed. I’m sensing a pattern.”

“An unlikely event occurring twice is merely a coincidence,” Harold informed him, rolling himself closer into John. He felt the rise and fall of his chest, the firmness of his legs… and something else. He stiffened, and John stiffened too, but Harold thought that maybe that had more to do with the way he’d more or less thrust his pelvis back into him than Harold’s own response to the realization.

Perfectly natural; it was perfectly natural, a biological reaction. He had one himself. It was normal. Completely normal. He wasn’t a teenager, he was a grown man. He shouldn’t be so acutely focused on a _completely nonsexual_ physical response, one that John was incapable of controlling.

But then—oh, John shifted, closer, a soft, guttural sound coming from the hollow of his throat—and that he _could_ control.

Harold sucked in a breath, rolled around to speak. But before he could John was kissing him feverishly, and he keened into it. John’s hands rose to cup his jaw and his lips parted, and his tongue slipped into Harold’s mouth, and he probably would have blissfully endured it long after it was time to go to work; John thrust against him, lightly. Harold pulled back, with a gasp and a shudder, and gripped John’s collar hard.

“We _really_ should get to work,” Harold said, trying to be stern, but the breathlessness of his tone and John’s blinding smile made it almost impossible.

“Yeah,” he agreed, thankfully, and rolled out of bed. “I’ll make breakfast while you’re getting dressed?”

“I can take my pants off in front of you,” Harold protested, affronted at the suggestion that he was so self-conscious he couldn’t stand in his underwear in front of the man whose tongue had just been delving in his mouth.

John smirked, a near predatory look in his eyes, and said deeply, “No, you can’t. Not if you want to make it to work this morning.”

Harold felt quite ridiculous as he struggled to button his own shirt several minutes later, fingers trembling and cheeks burning.


	27. In which Nathan is a Dick (But we Already Knew That)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh my god, you slept together, didn’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorrysorry this chapter is super short--i just watched the latest ep (finally) and im all discombobulated n sad about shaw but also my babies are so cute and i need an evening to deal

“A _dance?_ Nathan, I don’t dance.”

“C’mon, Harold, it’ll be fun!”

Harold turned in his chair to face his companion, straight-lipped and serious. “No, it would not. I’m not going.”

“But Harold—”

“I don’t _have_ to go, anyway; I’m not officially a business partner of any kind. My presence would be completely irrelevant.”

They were discussing, to Harold’s displeasure, the semi-annual IFT ‘office party’—semi-annual because it had only been established a year previously and Harold was still resolutely determined to keep Nathan from making it a regular event; ‘office party’ in quotations because it wasn’t for an office, it was the whole building, and it was less of a party and more of a black tie ballroom event, because Nathan never did _anything_ halfway lest it kill him—and Harold was determined to refuse attendance.

“It’ll be _boring_ without you,” Nathan complained, which was a boldfaced lie. Nathan was in every way a social butterfly; he thrived on dancing, drinking, and long, idle conversations. Harold preferred solitude, silence, and a nice book—perhaps a glass of wine, if he was feeling boisterous.

Nathan didn’t care what Harold preferred. “Besides, our new business partners are coming over from Japan to get a feel for our home base here in the US. Wouldn’t you like to _see_ them, at least?”

“Didn’t you just get _back_ from Japan? Why do they have to come here?” Harold frowned. “I don’t care what our international business partners are doing; that’s your arena.”

“You could bring _John~_.” Nathan sang, and Harold had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling. Nathan eyed him suspiciously when he didn’t immediately retort his blatant tease. Harold dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Oh my god, you slept together, didn’t you?”

Harold blushed hotly, turning himself away. “We shared the bed last night; the dog appropriated the couch.”

“Did you have sex??”

Harold blushed harder. “No, absolutely not!”

“ _Why not??_ ”

Harold glared scathingly over his shoulder at Nathan. “Stop trying to assert yourself into my sex life, Nathan. It’s unbecoming for a business executive.”

“ _What_ sex life?”

Harold scowled. “John and I are entirely within our rights to take our relationship as slowly or as quickly as we desire. I don’t _care_ if you approve; we’re both happy with the rate things are going right now.”

“Okay, okay,” Nathan soothed, smirking at him. “Did you cuddle with him, at least?”

“You really have no respect for personal boundaries, do you?”

“Were you the big spoon, or the little spoon?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“I’m just trying to be a supportive friend, here, Harold.”


	28. More Obnoxious than Endearing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harold came out to the front room after his shower, cheerfully drowning in one of John’s huge, soft t-shirts with the intention of starting dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is no one more dedicated to making sure that Harold and John are together than myself, and of course Nathan.

They were walking through the park. It was still early enough that the sun was up, and the park was bright from its reflection on the snow. Harold was holding an empty tea cup, still slightly warm in his gloved hand, and had his spare arm firmly tucked in the crook of John’s arm.

They weren’t talking. It was common for them, after eating lunch and before returning to their respective workplaces, to take a stroll through the park arm in arm and just take in the view. The scenery of Central Park, which Harold had not very long ago been easily enraptured by, now seemed entirely disinteresting when compared to the man at his side.

“I’ve been thinking,” Harold said, when John turned his face away from the sunlight to look down at him, practically glowing. “We should go to a symphony. It would be nice, wouldn’t it? I rather like the shows that are to be playing at the Lincoln Center the next few days.”

“Sounds great, Harold,” John said.

“What about a play? Do you like plays? They aren’t usually my favorite way to spend an evening but Phantom of the Opera is showing, and I quite enjoyed the film.”

“Anything you like,” John told him, pulling his free hand from his pocket to clasp it over Harold’s. He looked up suspiciously at the man, but John just gazed back down at him, and Harold was once again struck by how genuine John was. How he truly and completely, without the slightest hint of reserve, wanted to do anything he could with Harold, just for the sake of doing it _with him_.

It was really quite flattering, not to mention adorable.

-

Harold came out to the front room after his shower, cheerfully drowning in one of John’s huge, soft t-shirts with the intention of starting dinner. John was on the phone.

“Well it sounds like fun to me,” John said. He looked up as Harold entered, gave him a bemused look, and covered the mouth of the phone. “You’re having an office party this weekend?”

“Is that Nathan?” Harold asked, scandalized. “How did he get your number?”

“I take it you didn’t give it to him,” John said, handing Harold the phone when he snapped his open hand out for it.

“You _stole_ my cell phone,” Harold hissed, “to get John’s number. You realize this obsession with my personal life is bordering on stalking, yes?”

“It’s not an _obsession_ , and I only called him because you didn’t answer your phone. Put me on speaker.”

Harold reluctantly did so. “Why are you calling?”

“John: this Saturday. Black tie. Try and talk Harold into coming; he likes you more than he likes me.”

“I certainly do right now,” Harold snapped, and John smiled at him.

“I wish I could, Nathan, but if I can’t go I can’t really make Harold,” John said.

Harold opened his mouth, but not before Nathan could intervene to ask the same question: “Why can’t you come?”

“I don’t have a suit,” John said, shrugging at Harold.

“I can _buy_ you a suit, John,” Harold protested, before suddenly realizing what he’d unintentionally agreed to. He could imagine Nathan fist pounding the air in triumph.

“That settles it, then,” Nathan said, “you’re both coming! Oh, this will be fantastic! See you on Saturday, John!”

Harold picked up the phone and hung up, before letting out a resigned sigh and slumping down on the couch beside John. He dropped his head on the man’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to buy me a suit,” John whispered into his hair, softly.

“Yes, I do,” Harold sighed. “If I don’t, believe me, Nathan will. I suppose I’ll just have to ‘suck it up’, as it were, and go.”

“Why _is_ Nathan so focused on your personal life, anyway?” John asked, his arm sliding around Harold’s shoulders to pull him closer, still, than he already was. “I mean, it’s sweet—in a sort of overly-involved older brother kind of way. Has he always been like that?”

“More or less, yes.”

John laughed. “How do you deal with it?”

Harold was silent for a moment. “Nathan and I met in a dark time in our lives. I’d just lost my father, and he… well, he was dealing with his own problems. We bonded over our mutual suffering. I suppose he’s specifically dedicated to _our_ relationship working out because his former marriage did not.” He tilted his head to look up at John. “Please promise you won't tell him that I told you. He likes to think that he just comes off as obnoxious, yet endearing.”

“He does,” John said, nuzzling Harold’s head.

“A bit more obnoxious than endearing, I believe,” Harold said dryly.

“He’s _your_ best friend. And I promise.”


	29. Gift of Giving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If this was how John would react when showered with extravagancies, well, Harold would definitely have to start taking him out for fittings more often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> irrelevant oc ftw. Reggie totally ships it.
> 
> (at some point, I imagine, we will make our way back to the museum for _something_. what that something is has yet to be determined.

Harold took John out to get him fitted for a suit the following afternoon. John, of course, made the polite pretense of talking Harold out of doing it—Harold politely ignored him in response. Privately, there was a small part of him that was excited to do this for John. Thus far in their relationship, John had been the one to give Harold gifts; little things, like scribbled morning notes with tiny, angular hearts in the corners, books from the secondhand shop a block past the museum; a tiny glass bird figurine.

That one would always be his favorite.

Now, it was Harold’s turn to give John something.

He hadn’t realized it until he’d gotten to the tailors and seen the vast array of suits available for John to try on, but Harold was suddenly very acutely aware of the level at which he wanted to spoil John rotten.

“Reginald, bring out fifteen 240-count Supers, eight pure Cashmere, twelve Cotton blend, and your favorite of the silk.”

“We can just get polyester if that would be cheaper,” John said, alarmed. Harold watched the racks of suits being rolled out for them with a critical eye, waving off John’s concern.

“Not to worry, John; I’m sure we’ll be able to find something a little more elegant than polyester. And please, don’t worry about the price—I’m willing to pay whatever is necessary.”

They were in the dressing rooms for more than three hours, John trying on suit after suit with a growing look of mixed incredulity and amusement. Harold eventually settled on one of the black Cashmeres for the party—as well as two Supers and four of the cotton, because John had looked especially comfortable wearing those.

He also opted to shop around the store for a new selection of dress shoes and ties. He bought twelve of each. Upon seeing the mounting heights John’s eyebrows were climbing from the tailors’ stool in the back, he changed it to a baker’s dozen.

If this was how John would react when showered with extravagancies, well, Harold would _definitely_ have to start taking him out for fittings more often.

“What do you think?” Reginald asked, when Harold returned to the sizing area to assess the suits’ refitting. John was tall and somewhat narrow, but just a few minutes of cutting and stitching and he cut a quite striking image, staring at Harold with a half sheepish, secretly pleased smile.

“Very good,” Harold said, looking him up and down thoughtfully. “A bit more room in the shoulders, I think.” He stepped forward, pulling at the sleeve where he meant. “And the legs should be dropped a centimeter or so.” He got to his knees, tugging at the edge of the pant leg pointedly.

“Should I loosen the crotch, as well?” Reginald inquired. Harold looked at him, oblivious, and turned upwards to face John; John was blushing, lightly, shoulders tense and hands clenched at his sides. Harold’s gaze dropped down to the specified area, and suddenly he was blushing too.

“Ahem, I’m sure it’s fine as it is,” Harold muttered, shooting his tailor a venomous glare.

“Of course.” Reginald smiled blithely. “Anything else, Harold?”

“You’ll have to resize the rest of the suits to his measurements, of course.”

“Of course.”

“You really look quite magnificent,” Harold said, as he led John back to the dressing room to change to his normal clothes. “Bespoke really is unbelievably flattering on you.”

“Thank you, Harold,” John said. Before he disappeared behind the white curtain to change, he dipped his head to whisper softly into Harold’s ear, “You were wearing gray tweed the day we met; I don’t think I could come close to looking as magnificent as you did.”

Harold blushed and decided that he would have to wear that particular outfit far, far more often.

Harold ignored the cloying smirk on Reginald’s face when he handed him their bags. He primly placed his arm through John’s and turned to leave out the door, stopping when he noticed the man’s lingering glance backwards.

“What is it?” Harold asked.

“Nothing,” John said hurriedly, and Harold frowned at him.

“John, really, if you’re still worried about price I will remind you yet again that money is _no_ object. I picked practically everything we have out for you; is there something specific you would like?”

John glanced back, walked over to the tie rack… he pulled off a stark black bow tie, plain silk. He looked back at Harold, biting his lip as though he were still reluctant to ask for such a small article.

Harold smiled and shook his head, pulling out his card. “What a wonderful choice.”


	30. When I Fall in Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was absolutely ludicrous to be jealous of this strange woman, who was so keen to come and ask John for a dance; if for no other reason, he was sure John would say no. Well… at least, Harold expected him to say no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i listened to this http://www.yourepeat.com/watch/?v=3Ogk2aphtv8&start_at=0&end_at=230 literally the whole time i was writing this chapter. i think it adds another layer to the part; you decide!
> 
> in other news, i spent 2 hours writing this, its almost ten o'clock and i havent taken a shower yet. so, enjoy.

Saturday evening came all too fast, for Harold’s taste, but there was nothing to be done for it. He resignedly secured his tie around his neck and buttoned his indigo waistcoat in front of the bathroom mirror. John was still in his undershirt and slacks, shaving his jaw beside him, and Harold casually observed his elegant, methodical work, gaze flickering down not so subtly to see his firm, well-proportioned chest rise and fall with each deep, relaxed breath. John put down the razor and Harold met his eyes again, catching the glimmer of affection in his soft blue irises.

Harold waited for John in the front room as he put on his dress shirt and jacket, lifting his own blazer from the counter and pulling it over his shoulders. John came out to join him, clean cut and striking as he had been the day before. Harold’s eyes were immediately drawn to the exposed flesh of his collarbone, clearly displayed beneath the top unfastened buttons on his shirt.

“Tragically,” Harold said, with no small hint of honesty, “at a black tie event, you actually have to _wear_ the tie.”

“I knew there’d be a catch,” John murmured, giving Harold a smugly endearing smile as he stepped into his personal space to finish the shirt for him. He tied the bow with a deft hand, studiously focused on his work, until he felt John’s hand hovering just above Harold’s hip. He stopped. John wavered, but after a moment placed his hand firmly on Harold’s side, drawing him close. Harold tilted his head up, catching John’s lips with his own in a tender, chaste kiss. John leaned into him, in that way he did that made Harold feel like his primary goal was to absorb his body entirely, or else be absorbed by him, initiating contact between them at every possible juncture.

He tilted his head back, parting his lips to free a gentle, prodding tongue, which John fervently accepted. John’s free hand came up to nestle in the sparse hairs at the base of Harold’s neck. Harold’s hands were firmly stuck between them, splayed across John’s chest, but he was too captivated by the taste of the other man in his mouth, the smooth brush of his freshly shaven jaw.

Harold separated them, eager to continue but well aware that if they were late for the party Nathan would be calling both their cellphones in a frenzy, and he popped on his toes to give John a quick peck on the cheek before straightening his jacket and heading for the door.

“Did you fill Bear’s bowl?” Harold asked, the dog perking his ears at the sound of his name.

“He’s got food and water,” John said, peeking around the base of the table to make sure before nodding in affirmation. “Good boy, Bear, stay,” he whispered, patting the beast on the head before meeting Harold at the door.

“I don’t believe I’m forgetting anything,” Harold said. He checked his jacket pocket for his wallet and cell phone—both accounted for.

“I think we’re ready, Harold,” John said.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Harold muttered, gazing helplessly at John. “I apologize in advance for being entirely dull and unpleasant company. Social gatherings aren’t exactly my strongest suit.”

“It’s okay, Harold,” John said, kissing his cheek as Harold had barely a minute before. “I’ll be right with you, the whole time.”

-

Upon their arrival at the Plaza, Harold immediately began scanning through the wide double doors leading into the Ballroom for some sign of Nathan. He was firmly intent on locating him before he was caught by the guest registrar, waiting patiently at a podium outside the door.

Usually, Harold would be entirely content to allow Nathan to hunt him down, instead of the other way around. Tonight, his primary goal was keeping Nathan as close to him as possible, in order to avoid any sudden and unexpected catastrophes; as it were, he would much prefer surviving the evening without having to explain to John why people were referring to him as “Mr. Wren.”

He had addressed his concerns with Nathan. The business tycoon, true to form, didn’t bat an eyelash.

“Not to worry, Harold. We’ll just keep you away from the more proper attendees and you’ll both make it through to the end just fine.”

The woman registering the guests was a raven-haired woman with crimson lipstick and large, brown eyes. Harold recognized her as Angelica, a quiet but intelligent young woman, though he seriously doubted she would be able to place him so adeptly he wouldn’t have to divulge his name. Well, his official, IFT-recorded name.

She caught them in her line of vision, however, and immediately began scanning the list of intended guests who had yet to arrive. They were twenty-seven minutes late—there was an unexpected traffic delay several blocks down the road—and therefore most had already arrived. Presumably, it was a short list.

“Mr. W—” she began to say, but she was interrupted by Nathan striding out into the hallway with his arms stretched open, shouting “Harold! You finally made it!”

He enveloped Harold in a vicious bear hug before relenting his grip and taking a step back.

“And John!” he looked the man up and down with a critical eye, before his face broke out into a wide smile. “My god, you clean up better than I do! Let’s get the two of you inside. Where’ve you been? The party can’t start without you.”

The Grand Ballroom in the Plaza hotel was certainly a sight to be revered. It was like a palace, with towering pillars of pale marble, elegant glass chandeliers strung from the high ceilings overhead. Harold had been to the Ballroom before, for other such black tie events; Nathan had a thing for the Plaza mystique, and if Harold were being honest the man probably wouldn’t hesitate to purchase the whole building for himself if given the chance.

Thankfully, he had yet to be given said chance. For that evening, he had simply rented the Ballroom out.

When Harold and John arrived, the Ballroom was already quickly filling with high ranking members of the IFT Corporation, dressed in their finest apparel and scattered about the floor in small, organized groups, holding glasses of champagne and chatting idly to one another.

Nathan bounced back and forth from group to group like a well-dressed pinball, clapping backs and shaking hands and just generally being every bit the personable, amicable business executive he was meant to be. Harold and John followed silently after him, content to nod as Nathan introduced and slowly sink into the background as Nathan struck up a conversation within the group, only to flutter away minutes later while the rest of the group was in deep discussion.

Nathan led them confidently through the crowded hall to the front stage, where the orchestra was playing to a sparsely crowded dance floor.

“Why don’t you and John—” Nathan started, but Harold’s scathing glare silenced him almost immediately.

“I think we’ll sit and watch for a while,” Harold said firmly. Nathan bowed his head, accepting the loss, and the three of them took a seat around the floor. Soon, Nathan was engaged in conversation with a young technical engineer from floor twenty-nine, and Harold was watching the myriads of partners sway to the music.

“Excuse me,” a voice said, and Harold turned his head to see a young woman in a flowing, blue silk dress smiling coyly at John. “Would you like to dance?”

Harold’s gaze shifted automatically to John, who seemed more surprised by the request than actually contemplating it. Harold, however, immediately felt himself stiffen against a tight pinch of jealousy.

It was absolutely ludicrous to be jealous of this strange woman, who was so keen to come and ask John for a dance; if for no other reason, he was sure John would say no. Well… at least, Harold expected him to say no. Did John want to dance? Harold didn’t like dancing. He’d never been very good at it, and it had been quite a long time since he’d done so in front of such a large crowd. Perhaps John wanted to dance. It was always a possibility.

But there were other reasons why Harold shouldn’t be feeling jealous. For instance, he had absolutely no idea if John was attracted to women. His interested in men, but that didn’t necessarily indicate that he was disinterested in the alternatives.  It did, however, lead to another reason why Harold was overreacting: he had come to the party _with him_. He was Harold’s date for the evening. For god’s sake, they were living together—if only on a temporary basis. They had shared a bed, twice (John had ‘forgotten’ to purchase a dog bed for Bear while he was at the store; Harold had neglected to remind him). He was overreacting.

He was overreacting.

“No, thanks,” John said, smiling apologetically. Harold’s shoulders sagged just slightly with relief. “I’m with someone.”

“I wouldn’t mind a dance,” Nathan said from opposite Harold, jumping to his feet and bowing graciously to the woman. “If I may be so bold as to interject. It’s Charlotte, isn’t it? I recognize your face.”

Nathan and the woman—Charlotte, apparently—spun off onto the dance floor, and John and Harold were left sitting alone on the side.

Slowly, the dance floor began to fill up, though there was still plenty of room for straggling couples to join in. The orchestra had moved from peppy, relatively jazzy tunes to more soothing, melodic pieces, and Harold felt his eyes drift closed as he allowed the music to sweep him up, but not so far that he missed when John stood up from his seat.

Harold opened his eyes, saw John standing in front of him, one hand out and dipping at the waist with just a hint of the extravagant behavior Nathan had demonstrated earlier.

“May I have this dance?” John asked, politely.

 Harold shook his head, biting his lip. “I don’t dance, John.”

“Why not? I can lead, if you like,” John offered, taking Harold’s left hand in his.

“I’m afraid I’ll only step on your feet,” Harold insisted, ducking his head but keeping his hand in place.

“Hmm. Well, I’d like to dance.”

Harold immediately braced himself to insist that it was perfectly acceptable for John to find another dance partner—despite all the distressing (if negligible) possible outcomes of John meeting someone _else_ at the party.

Instead, he suddenly found his free hand suddenly clasped in John’s, and he looked up, baffled, to find John swaying serenely from side to side and staring down at him with a playful grin.

“Honestly John,” Harold chastised pointlessly, somewhat embarrassed but overtaken by the ridiculous sweetness of it all. “You can dance with someone else. It’s alright. I… I don’t mind.”

It was a bit of a lie. He would mind, quite a bit. Harold frowned to himself; he really wasn’t used to all these negative feelings welling up in him. Well, no, not negative, exactly. More like possessive.

Regardless, if John wished to dance with someone else, Harold wouldn’t stop him. And he was certain—mostly certain—that if he worked at it, he would be able to put aside the jealous feelings of seeing John in someone else’s arms; or someone else in his.

“I don’t want to dance with anyone else,” John replied, surprising Harold once again. “I want it to be with you.”

Harold stared at him, bewildered, until John released his left hand and made a half clumsy, sweeping turn beneath Harold’s too far down arm, gangly limbs flailing as he scrambled to maintain balance.

Harold laughed helplessly at the sight, and John grinned, and, well. How could Harold continue to refuse that doe-eyed, angelic look? He got to his feet, allowing John to lead him out onto the dance floor.

Harold took John’s right hand in his, his left coming up to rest on John’s shoulder. John’s free arm wound around to cradle the small of Harold’s back and pull him close, chest to chest as they swayed to and fro. Harold was conscious of his own feet for all of fifteen seconds before he was completely enraptured by John’s gaze, reverent and coveting as always, like Harold was something precious and perfect, and the rest of the world seemed to fall away until it was just the two of them on the floor. Harold’s hand rose to cup John’s cheek, and John dipped his head into it, eyes growing shut.

“You’re beautiful,” Harold whispered, without realizing he had said so out loud until John’s eyes flickered back open to meet him.

“You’re wonderful,” John replied, dipping his head down to touch their foreheads together. Harold let his own eyes flicker closed, and he sighed, blissfully content.

-

By the end of the evening, John and Harold were one of the last couples to leave the dance floor—the only one that remained was Charlotte and the twenty-ninth floor tech kid, who seemed nearly as immersed in each other as John and Harold were.

“I make good couples,” Nathan said decisively, when they joined up again at the door.

“You could have asked that woman out yourself, you know,” Harold informed him, arching an eyebrow. “It might be good for you to go _on_ a date, instead of _fixing_ one for someone else.”

“I’m a busy business executive with no time for that sort of thing,” Nathan said dismissively, waving a hand. “Don’t worry, Harold, I’m _fine_. I’ll get back on the horse as soon as I’m ready, I promise. Just not with Charlotte. She and Tony look good together, don’t they?”

“I suppose,” Harold agreed, his attention all but entirely focused back on John, who was hailing a taxi a few feet away.

“You two look good together, too,” Nathan said, and Harold nodded, distractedly.

“Yes, he does look quite nice this evening.”


	31. Lazy Sunday Mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Fifteen more minutes,” John said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once, when playing apples to apples with a group of friends, I put "Monday mornings" down for the prompt "romantic". No one got it. This--this is what I meant.

Harold awoke Sunday morning with John’s face pressed against his back, arms swathed around his hips protectively. He smiled, burying his face into the plush warmth of the pillow, and wondered how on earth it was possible to feel so content. Reluctant as he was to get up, however, he had to—nature was calling, urgently.

He made to pull himself gently out of John’s grasp, but it was no easy task. The man grunted, shifting ominously in his sleep, and his grip tightened around Harold, putting seriously unwanted pressure on his bladder.

“John,” he whispered gently, stroking his fingers along his arm in an attempt to rouse him from his slumber. John, however, remained steadfastly under, and whined plaintively when Harold once again moved to escape his grasp.

“I’ll be right back,” Harold told him, loosening John’s fingers and pulling away. “Go back to sleep.”

“R’ld,” John muttered, as Harold padded away to the bathroom.

When he returned, he stood over the bed and watched John’s sleeping form, curled up in the center of the bed. He looked like a sleeping angel, face relaxed and soft, lips parted to bring in deep, slow breaths. His hands tightened and loosened in the empty space where Harold had been, and he made a tiny, distressed noise.

“Oh my,” Harold tutted, lifting the covers and climbing back in. John’s eyes opened immediately, on guard and defensive, but his hands reached out for Harold to draw him back in, and when Harold came to him readily the tenseness in his eyes faded out.

“Harold,” John said roughly, voice dark and gravelly with sleep.

“John,” Harold returned, placing a loving hand on John’s cheek to pull him in for a fond kiss.

“Did you have a good time at the party?” Harold asked when they separated, caressing John’s jawline from his chin up to card through his hair.

“I always have a good time, as long as I can be with you,” John told him, leaning into Harold’s palm and sighing. “How about you?”

“I’d happily attend one of Nathan’s office parties every Saturday for the rest of my life, if it meant I could dance with you again,” Harold informed him. “Unfortunately, the company can only afford such an extravagant social gathering once a year.”

“We can dance any time, Harold,” John said dreamily, as Harold dipped down to press a light kiss on his hairline.

“Don’t be surprised when I take you up on that,” Harold warned. John pressed his face into Harold’s chest and laughed softly, Harold’s arms converging around his neck to keep him close. “We should get up.”

“Fifteen more minutes,” John said against him, and Harold couldn’t keep the smile from skittering across his face.

“Fifteen minutes, no more. We can’t spend the _whole_ day in bed.”

They did, in fact, spend the _entire_ day in bed. They alternated between sleeping, cuddling, and talking idly the whole morning and into the afternoon. John eventually ventured out into the kitchen when their hunger grew too great to ignore, and returned with a box of cereal, oblivious of Harold’s exaggerated eye roll.

The sun arced around the sky and set, the sunlight pouring into the bedroom and casting a warm, reddish-orange light over them. John tipped his head back to dump a fistful of Cheerios into his mouth as Harold watched with mildly repulsed fascination, and when their eyes met they both giggled serendipitously. John laid his head back on his pillow and gazed at Harold adoringly.

“I believe it’s safe to say we’ve wasted the day quite successfully,” Harold said, and John nodded in satisfied agreement.

“I believe it is.” He reached out to stroke Harold’s arm, affectionately. “It’s okay to have a lazy day once in a while, Harold.”

“I certainly hope you aren’t suggesting we do this again,” Harold said, feigning affrontment as he swept down to press a swift kiss to John’s temple.

“Would you mind that much?” John asked.

Harold dropped his head down on the pillow beside John’s, the evening haze slowly eclipsing them.

“I imagine you’ll most likely be able to convince me not to, once in a while.”


	32. A Slipperier Slope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, when one slips and falls, it's best not to try and get up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're going to pretend that my timeline hasn't been completely sporadic and just assume that Harold and John have now caught up to the present.
> 
> in other news, this ridiculous chapter idea has been bouncing around in my head for the better part of the past two weeks, and i've been waiting for the right time to write it. i almost slipped on a patch of ice on my way to school this morning, so i'm going to take that as a sign. enjoy the rinch!

Taking the dog for a walk was always a point of unease for Harold, because although Harold wasn’t entirely unfit, he certainly didn’t have the upper body strength to reign in a forty-two pound Belgian Malinois puppy on a crowded city street. The endeavor was no smaller a difficulty with the rapidly fluctuating New York City weather, and the growing amount of ice on the walkways.

John, unsurprisingly, was completely undaunted by the task—but he insisted that Harold come along. Harold protested each time, but would always eventually join him, bundled in his overcoat and hat and a periwinkle scarf he’d discovered during his move from the brownstone to the apartment.

John had the day off that Wednesday and Harold was busy with his work with the Machine, so he remained home as well. He refused to admit to Nathan that he was somewhat building his work schedule around Johns; he thought that since they were farther along with the Machine than they had been in weeks and his job at IFT wasn’t exactly vital, the changes could be made with little repercussion.

It wasn’t particularly cold that afternoon, and Harold had a rather strong craving for pierogis, so they walked to Central Park and ate lunch at a little restaurant with the revered dumplings nearby. Afterwards, they were taking their time getting back to the apartment, with Bear dutifully sniffing at every park bench and passerby that came within six feet of them, ears perked and alert and tail wagging. Harold’s hand was clasped firmly in John’s, their fingers intertwined and swinging gently as they meandered on the sidewalk, comfortable in the silence.

The last month had been nothing less than a whirlwind of hazy adoration and sweeping affections, of John’s devoted stares and shyly twiddling thumbs; of Harold biting his cheek to keep himself from smiling too much at the office, whistling candidly when he was alone in the library, overcome with a deep, warm satisfaction in the pit of his stomach.

He turned his head to look up at John, and John looked down at him. He smiled dazzlingly, and Harold grinned helplessly back. If he wasn’t careful, he thought to himself, he’d be completely consumed by this man—and he wasn’t entirely convinced that that was a bad thing.

Then, suddenly, the ground fell away beneath him, and Harold tilted wildly backwards, pinwheeling his free hand as his feet skidded across the icy ground and pulled him downwards.

“Harold—!” John exclaimed, and his strong arms wrapped around his waist in an attempt to steady him. Unfortunately, he’d reached the massive ice patch as well, and after several clumsy moments wherein the two struggled to regain balance against one another, gravity won and they fell, crashing to the ground.

Harold landed heavily, the wind knocked out of him, and John’s head made a loud, unpleasant cracking noise against the ice, a pained hiss escaping from his lips.

“John, are you alright?” Harold huffed, reaching out to him, and John nodded, grimacing but giving Harold a reassuring glance.

“I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“Yes, I—I believe so.” Harold checked himself, just to be sure, but there didn’t seem to be any damage.

He made to get to his feet, but to no avail, as there seemed to be absolutely no traction on the ice, and he collapsed back down again, looking helplessly at John.

John, too, struggled to rise, his limbs flailing and scrabbling at the ice as he failed to find purchase. Harold was laughing, flat on his back, and John finally collapsed in a snickering heap beside him. Bear peered at them from his spot just past the edge of the walkway, tilting his head.

“All right,” Harold said, tilting his head at the dog. “Let’s try rolling.”

So, they rolled, giggling as they went, to the edge of the ice, until John was close enough to grasp onto the seat of a bench and pull himself up. He reached down and picked up Harold, who was still giggling but shaking slightly from the cold that had permeated through his jacket. John gathered him up into his arms, shielding him, and kissed his cheek gently.

“It’s getting pretty cold, we should hurry.”

Harold tried his best to keep his eyes on the ground, to avoid another incident, but he was entirely too busy eyeing John to really notice. He couldn’t help it.

John made hot tea and wrapped Harold in a blanket on the couch, despite his protests. He did, however, concede to holding a bag of frozen peas against the back of his head where it had struck the sidewalk. Harold was worried about a concussion; John was not. Resigned, Harold agreed not to take him to the hospital so long as he informed him right away if anything seemed out of focus or he became dizzy. That seemed to be all he could goad from the stubborn man.

 John sat down on the couch and wrapped his strong arms around Harold, pulling him flush against him after turning on the movie channel. Harold couldn’t care less what they were watching. He nestled his face against John’s chest, dosing to the soothing sound of his steady heartbeat, and thought about how utterly far he had fallen for this man.

Sometimes, though, when one slips and falls, it’s best not to try and get up.


	33. Stress Relief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was typing out a heated email rapidly to Nathan, when he suddenly stiffened at the warm brush of air that ghosted across his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2011/06/08/many-stem-teachers-dont-hold-certifications
> 
> I wasn't sure what to get Harold all riled up about so I went with education reform. I feel ya, Harold; it's real messed up.

Though John’s work schedule was chronically sporadic, Harold was determined to work around it in order to capitalize on any and all free time they found, and as a result he had taken to leaving the office five minutes early on days John had the night shift, so that they could have dinner together. Two months ago, the mere suggestion of leaving work before well after eight o’clock would have sent him into a tizzy; now, he hardly batted an eyelash if it meant he could spend more time talking to John. Or simply looking at John. Or, really, doing absolutely anything within the general vicinity of John—especially when that absolutely anything didn’t involve Nathan.

John was in the kitchen making spaghetti—the one meal at which both of them somehow exceled, though Harold vastly preferred John’s basil-infused tomato sauce to his own store bought concoction—while Harold worked on his laptop on the couch, complaining loudly about the apparently limitless faults of the American education system.

“Did you know that in 2011 thirty percent of STEM educators didn’t have degrees in the fields of study in which they taught?” he asked.

“STEM?” John asked.

“Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education,” Harold clarified. “This is ridiculous. This article says that almost a quarter of math teachers don’t hold math degrees. _Math_ teachers. _Without_ math degrees. Two thirds of history teachers don’t have degrees, either. By this standard, I could be qualified to teach a secondary education level History—I could be a _History Teacher,_ John, without any formal form of education on the subject.”

“Why are you looking into this, all of a sudden?” John asked, checking over Harold’s shoulder at the computer.

“Patricia from the accounting team mentioned to me that her daughter’s chemistry teacher was quite literally underqualified for the job. Absolutely ludicrous—do they realize that they’re educating the future generations who will be in control of the planet? This is far beyond incompetency.”

“Is it a conspiracy?” John said. Harold turned around to face him, glaring at the teasing smile on the other man’s face. “Relax, Harold. You can’t do anything about it, so don’t stress yourself.”

“Can’t _do_ anything about it? I will absolutely not accept that. I’ll have to bring it up with Nathan, perhaps IFT could sponsor a nationwide education reform project… though nothing like the one in place now, of course; that’s simply a joke.”

He was typing out a heated email rapidly to Nathan, when he suddenly stiffened at the warm brush of air that ghosted across his ear.

“You really are wonderful, you know that?” John said, his throaty murmur just inches from Harold’s head. Harold turned into it, tilting his head up to capture John’s lips with his own. The email was suddenly forgotten, as he felt John’s soft lips part and his tongue gently request entrance.

John climbed over the back of the sofa and ignored Harold’s protests of “you could break the couch, John” as he removed the computer from Harold’s lap and placed it on the coffee table. Then he leaned in close, reoccupying Harold’s warm mouth with his hands caressing the sides of his body intimately.

Harold was immediately captured by the sensation, raising his hands to John’s neck and cupping the nape. John ran his teeth along the edge of Harold’s lower lip and his grip immediately tightened, drawing out a startled, eager gasp from the other man. He dropped his hands to John’s shoulders and _pushed_ , until he was on his back, and followed him down, propped up on his elbows above John while he pushed his fingers through his hair. His grip tightened slightly as Harold pulled his mouth away to kiss along his jawline, down his neck to his Adams apple, taking special, specific care of his collarbone—a particularly erogenous zone, he discovered, when John moaned beneath him, bucking upwards and revealing the extent of his investment in the motion.

Suddenly, Harold’s phone rang, and he growled deeply into John’s ear. John shuddered against him, a satisfying reaction, and he sat up, picking up the phone.

“ _What_?”

“Har—Harold? Is everything okay? You sound like you’re about to kill a man.”

“What do you want, Nathan?”

“Look, I don’t know how it happened, but something’s gone wrong with the Machine.”

“What do you mean, gone wrong?”

“I mean viruses, thousands of them. Tens of thousands. I don’t know where they’re coming from, but they’re going at the firewall like it’s the Great Wall. The software might be able to handle it, but if we don’t kick off the piggyback, it’ll fry the hard drive overnight.”

Harold sighed, deep and exasperated. “Are you there now?”

“At the library, yes.”

He sighed again. “And you need me there?”

“Trojan Gen viruses, Harold—this isn’t cookie malware! I’m good, but not as good as you. I need your help.”

“Fine. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Pass my apologies on to you know who.”

Harold hung up and sighed, resigned and guiltily looking back at John. He was sitting up, cheeks flushed and slightly winded, but smiling, a forgiving look.

“I’m sorry.”

“Harold, it’s okay.”

“I’m going to destroy Nathan.”

“Really, Harold, it’s okay. Besides, I have work in a half hour, anyway.” He leaned forward, pressing a firm kiss to Harold’s mouth, then his temple. He looked at him with hooded eyes. “I’d like to take my time.”

Harold smiled, softly, then suddenly John’s eyes grew wide and he jumped to his feet.

“The spaghetti!”

He ran to the kitchen, and managed to rescue the pots before they boiled over. When he looked back, Harold was buttoning his coat, and he went out to him and kissed his cheek goodbye. Harold retaliated by latching a hand on the front of his shirt and pulling him in for a searing kiss that left him stumbling back, stunned and once again flushed.

“I’ll try to make it back before it’s too late,” Harold promised, brushing his hand over John’s cheek, and John caught his hand to hold it in place for a moment, before releasing and letting Harold out into the hall.


	34. A Minor Concern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He slept at _the office?_ You must have done something to piss him off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which we follow John's perspective instead of Harold's! So, John, what are you up to when you're alone?

“Hey, Scowler, you gonna go check the New American wing for vandals sometime this century, or should I call security on _you_?”

John looked up from his cell phone to aim a sullen frown at Fusco. Fusco was currently sitting behind the desk, feet propped up on the desk in such a way that should he be spotted, he’d very likely be fired. John had communicated these concerns mildly to him one idle afternoon years before, when he’d first taken the job; Fusco had snorted at him, contemptuous, and said that he was waiting for the day they’d fire him, so he could get out of the hellhole of a museum and get into a career with some promise—detective work, perhaps. John, of course, knew it was a lie, because Fusco liked his job more than any normal person should like being a museum security guard.

“Maybe I _should_ call somebody,” Fusco said, eyeing John with an expression suspiciously akin to irritation, but with perhaps a slight touch of concern. “You’re face hasn’t looked that long since January. What’s eating at you?”

“It’s…” John wavered, glancing back down at his phone, frowning. No new messages. Harold had left late the night before, something urgent to do with IFT… he had never returned.

“It’s that guy, isn’t it? The guy with the glasses? What’d you do, get in a fight with him?”

“He’s working,” John said, giving Fusco a scornful glare. “And we don’t fight.”

“Yeah, that’s weird,” Fusco said in apparent agreement. “Normal couples fight.”

“Are we talking about John’s boyfriend without me? You know I love hearing John just gush about him.” Carter asked, approaching the front desk from the back hall. She slapped Fusco’s shoe with a stack of brochures, and grumbling, he lowered them to the floor. “What’s wrong, John? You look like somebody kicked your dog.”

“No one kicked your dog, right?” Fusco said immediately, sounding decidedly too distressed about the wellbeing of an animal he’d only seen once before. Though, to be fair, it had been when John had _found_ Bear. They’d been on their way to catch lunch together—the highest occupational hazard they seemed to have was spending a large amount of off time with one another, whether they liked it or not—when John had seen the dog, pursued by a gang of unruly teenagers, and he and Fusco had immediately given chase.

John had a soft spot for animals, but it was _nothing_ compared to Fusco’s—it was one of the very few times in his life that John had been the one to break _up_ a fight. Unfortunately, however, Fusco’s building didn’t allow for pets, and since they already spent too much time together at work, Fusco hadn’t seen Bear since the rescue.

“If anyone touched him, I’ll staple their fingers together,” Fusco snarled.

“I don’t think so,” Carter said, removing the stapler from Fusco’s immediate reach. “If something was wrong with the dog, John would’ve said something was wrong with the dog. So, what is it really, John?”

“Harold,” John admitted. “He went to work late last night—company emergency. He hasn’t called me back yet.”

“He hasn’t called you since last night?” Carter asked, incredulous. “Didn’t he come home last night?”

“No,” John shook his head. There was the nagging swell of unease in the pit of his stomach when he thought about it, wondering if Harold was okay. There couldn’t be anything dangerous, surely, in working at a technology firm, but in less than five hours it would have been a full day since they’d seen or talked to each other—and John was worried.

“He slept at _the office_? You must have done something to piss him off,” Fusco said.

“I _didn’t_ ,” John gritted out.

“Fusco, stop antagonizing John.” Carter pulled John over to one of the lobby benches and sat him down.

“It’s because it’s almost Valentine’s Day, right? That’s what has you so worked up.”

“Well…”

John wasn’t going to lie to himself; he’d been worrying over the fast approaching holiday for some time now.

He wanted to do something special. Something sweet, romantic, and charming—one of those little things he’d done before that always gave Harold a bright little excited gleam in his eye, along with a tiny, abbreviated gasp like he somehow wasn’t expecting it. He wanted that, but on a bigger scale—something that would leave Harold speechless.

But now it seemed as though Harold wouldn’t be there with him. It had been years since John had celebrated Valentine’s Day with someone. He didn’t like thinking about having to wait another year to do it.

When he shared his concerns with Carter, she shook her head at him, almost exasperated, and took his hand.

“Honey, listen,” Carter said. “It doesn’t matter what day it is. If Harold’s half the fantastic guy you talk about—”

“He is,” John said.

“—Then he won’t care. It isn’t about the date, John; it’s about the company, and what Harold will want is for you to be waiting at home for him when he gets back, however long it takes.”

John smiled softly, squeezing Carter’s hand. “You’re right, Joss.”

“But if he doesn’t come home tonight, you’d better call and make sure he’s eating,” Carter warned him. “Workaholics have this nasty tendency to forget to do that when they get too busy.”


	35. Time for My Valentine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'll be waiting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapter, i'm sure, you've all been waiting for. ;)

Harold was still in the library when his cell phone rang. He sat up immediately, cracking his head against the underside of the desk.

“ _OW-wch!_ ”

“Everything alright out there?” Nathan yelled, hidden from view in the deep recesses of the library bookshelves.

“I’m fine,” Harold shouted, rubbing the back of his aching head gingerly. “Try connecting the HDMI to the red wire before resetting the mainframe.” He reached his hand up and grabbed for the cell phone, pulling it down under the desk with him.

“Hello?”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“What?”

“Harold, it’s three in the morning.”

“Oh, John. I’m sorry, we’ve been busy—serious computer breakdown. I promise, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“It’s just that you’ve been gone for a few days, and I’ve been getting worried.”

“A few—” Harold scrambled out from underneath the desk, searching for a calendar. “Oh my god, Nathan, it’s _Saturday!_ ”

“What? No it isn’t, it’s still Thurs—Friday. It’s still Friday!”

He poked his head out from behind one of the bookshelves to peer at Harold. “It is still Friday, right?”

“John, I am so sorry,” Harold said, rubbing his forehead. “I had no idea it was so late. Er, early. Oh, god—it’s Valentine’s Day, isn’t it? Oh, John—”

“Harold, it’s okay,” John soothed, the static crackle of the machine doing little to remove the sweet, gentle tone from John’s voice. “Really, I understand. I’m just glad you answered this time.”

“This time? How many times did you—”

“Six,” John said. “It’s okay, Harold.”

“No, it isn’t,” Harold argued, jumping when a large hand suddenly came to settle on his shoulder.

“Go home, Harold,” Nathan said. “I can take it from here.”

“Are you sure?” Harold asked, casting a concerned look at the Machine’s CPU, dangling open and helpless.

“Of course.” Nathan smiled at him, reassuringly. “You got us through the brunt of it; I do actually know a thing or two about computers, you know. Go home and see John, before he hunts us down and drags you away himself.”

After another minute of hesitation, Harold finally raised the phone back up to his ear. “John, I’ll be home in a few minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

-

Harold opened the door to the apartment and stepped in, going so far as to remove his shoes and unbutton his coat before realizing that the lights were a considerable amount dimmer than usual. He looked up, and stared, astonished by the sight of dozens of candles scattered about the apartment.

He peered into the kitchen, and the table was set; two seats side by side, wine glasses and a thick bouquet of red carnations in the center, in a blue vase. He stepped forward and touched one, the soft, feathery petals delicate and cool against his fingers.

“John?” Harold looked around the seemingly empty apartment, until the sound of rustling from the hall made him look up.

He was dressed in a cotton suit and rose colored dress shirt, the top two buttons undone, and he looked at Harold like the past two days without him had been nearly unbearable.

“Oh, John,” Harold said, smiling tenderly at him. “You do realize it’s three in the morning _on_ Valentine’s Day, yes? We have all day to do this.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” John said, sweeping him up in his arms and kissing him softly. “I don’t want you out of my sight for the next twenty four hours.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Harold said, presenting John with his cell phone, dutifully turned off. John smiled, taking the device and placing it on the counter, and lead him back to the table.

“What’s for dinner?” Harold asked, just as the microwave buzzer sounded from the kitchen.

John looked at him sheepishly. “I was going to reheat the spaghetti, but it was a little, er… overcooked.”

“That’s quite alright,” Harold told him as he pulled out the plate, and Harold couldn’t help the good-natured scoff that escaped him when John set the tiny microwave pizza on his plate. “Aren’t we both eating?”

“We can share, can’t we?” John asked with a smile. “It is Valentine’s Day.”

They ate in comfortable silence, Harold chewing his meal slowly with his attention all but entirely focused on the hollow of John’s exposed throat. John noticed, of course, and was smiling at him over his wine glass, with an intense light in his eyes that reminded Harold very vividly of what had transpired between them just two days previously.

“John,” Harold said, grasping John’s wrist, and he immediately moved up from his seat to go to Harold, throwing one leg over his lap and pulling him in for a deep, searing kiss.

Harold was fisting the lapels of John’s jacket, roving his mouth, but John pulled away, eyeing him pointedly.

“When was the last time you ate?” He asked.

“I’m not hungry,” Harold informed him, and John tilted his head with a disbelieving stare. With one of John’s legs on either side of Harold’s hips he honestly couldn’t fathom why John could be thinking about food, but the look on his face made it clear that arguing with him would be futile.  He reached out and obligingly stuffed several more slices of pizza into his mouth, to John’s undisguised amusement.

“Take your time,” John purred, leaning over him and whispering softly into his ear. “Like you said, we have all day.”

“I’m not feeling particularly patient, all of a sudden,” Harold informed him through a mouthful of pizza, swallowing and pulling John in for another kiss. “Is that enough for you?”

“You still have half the pizza to go, Harold.”

“Perhaps I want to _save my appetite,_ John.”

Harold practically dragged John up and off of him, following him to his feet and pushing the chair in. “I believe we had some unfinished business when I was so hastily called away.”

“I agree,” John intoned, and Harold smiled, turning around and guiding John along down the hall, to the bedroom.

Oh, _finally_.

The door closed and suddenly things were moving entirely too slow, and they collided into each other, Harold’s arms around John’s neck and John’s hands gripping his hips, holding him close, delving his tongue into his mouth and mapping out each niche and crevice like there was nothing— _nothing_ —on earth he could be doing that was more important.

“Mm—protection,” Harold said, pulling away just enough to look into John’s eyes.

John nodded, smiling, “I know—I’ve got that.”

“It isn’t that I don’t trust you,” Harold added, and John laughed, pulling Harold’s shirt tails out from under his pants and pushing his jacket from his shoulders, as Harold did the same to him.

“I know that.”

“It’s simply that safety is a priority and in case it wasn’t already obvious, I take every precaution seriously,” Harold continued, pulling John’s undershirt up and over his head, and finally allowing himself to take in the elegant beauty of John’s chest.

There were scars, Harold noted, scattered across his torso—bullet holes, tiny puckers of pale skin where shrapnel may have struck in an explosion, and Harold reminded himself faintly that John was an army man, and he’d gone through horrible things, and each one of those scars most likely had meaning to him, of which Harold was intent on versing himself. But he didn’t want to breach the subject yet, and anyway he was far too distracted by the other aspects of the man’s physique to retain too much focus on just one aspect.

He was sculpted and fit, with a chiseled chest and taut, firm muscles that bulged beneath the skin, but not such in a way that made him look like a warrior, but like a man with strong arms built for holding tightly onto someone else.

John, to Harold’s surprise, seemed every bit as taken by his appearance; his hands ran over Harold’s chest and stomach reverently, wantonly, and they met again to kiss, to taste wine and cheap microwave pizza and one another.

They collapsed into the bed, and John barely had the time to pull open the nightstand drawer before Harold was on top of him, biting his neck, and he let out a startled, surprised gasp which quickly evolved into a pleasured moan, groping for purchase on Harold’s back and fiercely hugging him close.

“John,” Harold said against him, when he attempted to sit back up but found that John’s grip was too tight. “You’re making this a bit difficult.”

“Sorry,” John said, releasing him, and Harold leaned over the bed to reach into the open drawer. John took the opportunity to explore every exposed inch of him, his hands unrelenting and sending shivers of pleasure down Harold’s spine.

“What do you have in mind?” John asked, as Harold slid down the length of his body to unfasten his pants.

He slapped John’s hands gently away when he moved to help him with the zipper, and said, “I think I’m up for just about anything, though I’d prefer to save oral for a later time when I’ll actually be able to taste you.”

John shuddered violently, letting out a weak, shaky laugh. “Jesus, would it kill you to give a little warning next time?”

Harold looked up at him, amused. “I believe that _was_ a warning, John.” He cupped John’s growing erection firmly in his palm through his underwear, and hummed in satisfaction at the plaintive whine he received from below. “Oh, John, dear. Make that sound again.”

Harold proceeded to take John apart with a single-minded intent, each touch eliciting a sweet, desperate sound from deep inside of John’s throat as he squirmed, clawed at the sheets, panting for breath, loud and unrestrained. Harold was unhesitatingly generous with lubricant, coating his fingers liberally before slowly pressing one inside, savoring the helpless moan that escaped his partner’s lips.

“Does that feel alright?” Harold asked, stroking John’s hairline with his free hand while he worked John through with one finger, more than obliging when the man pleadingly asked for another.

“Have you done this before?” Harold asked, although it felt like a completely ridiculous question. Though the sounds he made were desperate and needy, his body was relaxed, moving with Harold in every way that made it easier, more satisfying, to experience.

“Been a long time,” John told him breathlessly, then, “Please, Harold, please.”

“Alright,” Harold cooed, kissing John gently as he pulled out his fingers. He stood up, removing his belt and pants, and reveled in John gazing up at him, still half-dressed but completely undone, cock hard inside the neatly applied condom Harold had rolled on earlier. He put one on himself before removing John’s slacks and underwear and dropping them carelessly on the floor, and climbing back into the bed.

“What was it like,” Harold asked, pushing his fingers back into John once more, twice more, before lining himself up. “That long time ago?”

“It was,” John panted, fisting the sheets and throwing his head back, “Nothing like this.”

“No?” Harold murmured, pushing inside and feeling John convulse beneath him.

“Nothing,” John gasped, as Harold rolled his hips and thrust, slow and methodical.

“You can hold the headboard if you’d like,” Harold said mildly, and John’s hands flew up to clutch the top of the bed. “That’s much better, isn’t it?”

“Don’t stop,” John groaned, and Harold felt like he had to laugh at that.

“There’s nothing in this world that could possibly make me stop of my own accord,” Harold told him, a little breathless as he leaned over John and sped up his movement. “You feel excruciatingly wonderful, you know.”

“You…” John seemed to lose all capacity for coherent speech when Harold began mouthing roughly at his neck and shoulder, and all conversation ceased between them as their combined breathing grew increasingly ragged. Harold could practically see the stars in John’s eyes as he came, gasping out Harold’s name like gospel, and he barreled headfirst into his own orgasm at the sight, collapsing against John’s side in a glorious haze.

He eventually became aware of John shifting them around so that his arm was wrapped around Harold’s shoulders, and Harold was more or less draped on top of him like a child’s ragdoll, and he smiled against John’s chest contentedly.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, tracing the line between John’s pectorals down to his bellybutton and back up.

“I think my brain is melting out of my ears,” John told him, still looking half dead as he stared with blind eyes up at the ceiling.

“I certainly hope I didn’t damage that lovely, brilliant mind of yours,” Harold replied, smiling despite himself. “It would be a terrible waste.”

“Harold…” John was staring down at him now, renewed, tired but intent and acutely focused on him.

“Yes, John?”

The look faded away and he smiled, bending down to place a kiss on Harold’s head. “I’m tired. We should take a shower.”

“I don’t quite believe my legs can hold me upright for that long,” Harold informed him, using what little strength he had left to pull of his condom and throw it in the trash. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” John agreed, laying back after throwing his own condom away. Harold sprawled out beside him, spent and overheated, but laced their fingers together silently, and allowed his eyes to sink closed as he feel into a deep, dreamy sleep.


	36. Mine Entirely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Tell me," Harold said. "Tell me everything."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaand... then came the angst. not a lot, just a tiiiiiiiny bit.

Harold woke up late that morning, the sun filtering in through the bedroom window, and was aware that it was the first time he’d woken up with John and the man’s arms weren’t wrapped around him.

He was still in bed, and Harold could hear the steady breathing behind him, too fast to be asleep.

“John?” Harold rolled over in bed, to face the other man. John was staring at him with wide, clear eyes, expression blank. Before Harold could feel the prickling sense of dread build up in the pit of his stomach, he reached out and gripped Harold’s arm tightly, and Harold pulled into him, touching his face and shoulders soothingly.

“I’m sorry,” John said, voice barely above a whisper, as though he were afraid of startling him. “I’ve just… I haven’t done this with anyone in a long time.”

“Tell me,” Harold said, because he wanted to know. He needed to know; why John was so insecure, so distant, why he was so afraid that Harold would reject him as if—as if it were even a _possibility_ —

“The last time,” John said, staring away from Harold as he spoke, “I tried, after Jessica—my fiancée. And it was… hard. And whenever I was with someone, I felt like… like I was forgetting her. And I wanted to punish myself for it. And I let other people punish me for it.”

His hands, Harold realized, were clenching into fists, his body contorted in on itself like he needed to defend, a cornered animal.

“Tell me everything,” Harold whispered, cupping John’s hands in his.

“I didn’t want it to hurt with you, and… it didn’t. Because you didn’t want it to hurt, either. And I know this is different, being with you and not… But… I guess what I’m trying to say is that no one’s ever stayed with me after they got what they wanted.”

John gazed at him, eyes full of hurt, pain, and it made Harold’s stomach curdle, his jaw tighten. Because that look, that _look_ , like John was waiting for him to admit to the truth, to admit that he didn’t actually want him and care for him and need him so desperately in a way he’s never needed another human being before. Because someone had _made_ him believe that after Jessica, anyone he tried to be with wouldn’t actually be his to have.

“I’m afraid of losing you,” John admitted, uselessly, as if Harold hadn’t already reached that conclusion, and Harold shook his head vehemently.

“Don’t be,” he said.

“I trust you,” John said, small and helpless, afraid of trust, out of his element, out of his safe zone.

“I am going to find who made you think that you are an object to be misused and thrown away,” Harold said darkly, tightening his already fierce grip on John’s hands, “And make them regret it. You are _not_ a toy, John, you are _not_ a plaything. I don’t want sex, I want _you_.”

John smiled, a weak relief, and allowed Harold to nuzzle himself under John’s chin and snuggle close. “Anyone who had you and didn’t do everything in their power to stay with you made a grave, grave error, which I fully intend to capitalize on.”

“Is that your way of saying I’m yours now?” John asked, teasing, but there was still a lilt of hope in his voice like that’s exactly what he wanted to hear.

“Mine entirely,” Harold agreed, hugging him close. “Just as I belong to you.”


	37. Back to Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harold got the call that afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nope, I didn't forget that Harold has been living with John on a temporary basis :) I've just been puzzling over where to fit this chapter in.

Nathan met Harold in his office the next day, starting right off the bat with “I wiped out that virus and set up a new impenetrable antispyware firewall and I did it all by myself, you’re welcome, I’m amazing I know, no applause please.”

 _No firewall is impenetrable_ , the usual, cynical part of Harold said in his mind, but he barely heard it, and only offered Nathan a wan smile. “That’s wonderful, Nathan. Glad to hear it.”

Accustomed to being shot down from his high horse, Nathan eyed him suspiciously for a moment, and Harold interrupted his train of thought before it had time to reach its destination. “Taiwanese for lunch? There’s a new restaurant I passed on my way here; it looks somewhat palatable.”

“Feeling risky today, Harold?” Nathan asked, sitting down beside him. “I thought your lunch schedule was permanently booked. Not the night shift again?”

“No,” Harold shook his head. “He took the day off, actually.”

“Really? I thought you told me he was as resistant to personal days as you are. Unless he’s _love_ si--”

“Ah,” Harold interrupted, glaring at him in warning. “Usually he is. However, I managed to talk him into one today. He needed the rest.”

“Why?” Nathan inquired, resting his cheek on his fist. “Didn’t you let him get any sleep over the weekend? Kept him up all night with your hidden obsession with eighties romantic comedies, I assume?”

Harold didn’t react save for a slight, quick smile, maintaining perfect silence as the pieces slowly clicked in Nathan’s head.

“Wait—you _finally_ slept with him?? Oh my god, Harold, thank _Christ_ , that poor kid’s been waiting for you to jump him since January! So—and I’m sure I already know the answer to this, but—is he as hot under the dress shirt and tie as he is in it? Because, really, you hit the mother load!”

-

Harold got the call that afternoon.

He didn’t get to answer it, however, because Nathan was too busy chattering his ear off and obnoxiously demanding details about their weekend—Harold accused him blatantly of attempting to live vicariously through he and John’s relationship, to which Nathan had no rebuttle, and Harold dedicated much of the rest of the afternoon hunting for a suitable date for the evening around the office for him. Nathan protested loudly, insisting that any relationship with someone working inside his own company would be a clear conflict of interest, so Harold also created him an online dating avatar for a myriad of popular websites, and threatened to lock him out of the library if he didn’t have a romantic event scheduled for himself within the next week.

He managed to escape from the office (and Nathan) by six o’clock that evening. He reached the apartment and stepped in, greeted by Bear at the door. John looked up from his book on the couch as Harold placed the warm takeout bags onto the counter.

“Hey,” John said, and smiled. Harold smiled back at him, crossing the apartment to place a quick kiss on his forehead.

Finally, things seemed to be coming easily for both of them—John was relaxed and content, splayed out on the couch in loose jeans and a t-shirt and a copy of _The Giver_ in his hands, apparently forgotten now that Harold had returned home. A brief image of John as his devoted home-bound husband awaiting his return from work flashed through Harold’s mind, and he batted the thought away. John liked his job. He’d be bored without it, stuck at home all day. He contented himself by stroking a gentle hand through his hair before turning around to retrieve their plates.

His cell phone rang again as he was doling out the rice.

“Hello? Oh, yes—that is my building, yes. It’s—it is? Finished?” Harold looked back at John, who was watching him with a faintly bemused expression. “Yes. Yes, thank you. I appreciate the call. Goodbye.”

“Is something wrong?” John asked, and Harold nodded dully.

“Oh, no. It’s my… the brownstone. They’ve finished with the repairs. I can return any time now.”

“Oh.” For all intents and purposes, John appeared every bit as deflated as Harold felt. “Are you… going back tonight?” John asked, slowly.

He’d forgotten. He’d actually forgotten that he wasn’t living in John’s apartment on a permanent basis. It was odd, really, dizzying; even lacking most of his personal materials, clothes, and being displaced from the place he’d called home for the better part of his time in New York, he had forgotten that he didn’t actually belong here.

Well, perhaps a part of him belonged here. That part of him was sitting on the couch, staring at him with wide, sad eyes, mirroring his own feelings on the matter.

 “Well—it’s a bit late,” Harold said weakly, a pathetic excuse really, but John leaped for it.

“Then stay,” he said. “Until you can get settled back in.”

“Perhaps—perhaps it would be easier if I waited until this weekend,” Harold suggested. “My work schedule is a bit heavy, this week.”

“That’s fine,” John insisted, getting up off of the couch. “You can leave whenever you want.”

But Harold didn’t want to leave; that was the problem.

“Then, I suppose…” Harold started, staring down at the cell phone in his hand. “…I suppose it’s time to go… back to normal.”

But this _was_ _normal_. This—living in John’s apartment, eating dinner together every night, walking Bear, waking up in the same bed—it was their normal. And it felt good—and Harold didn’t want it to stop.

“Just… whenever you _want_ ,” John said, pointedly, and Harold stared at him, startled, hoping—no, that was ludicrous, wasn’t it? Two months wasn’t long enough for two people to move in together. It was absurd.

Though, Harold had been acting a tiny bit absurd since he’d called the number on the back of an art museum business card, so what was going to make him stop now?

“…What if I wanted to stay? Indefinitely, that is,” Harold said eventually, and John visibly sagged, likely in relief, and then he was approaching Harold with that kind of intent he had when he—

“Whatever you want, Harold,” he said, taking Harold’s head into his hands and kissing him. Harold put his arms around him, holding him close, already running through the list of realtors he had on speed dial.

“We’ll have to sit down and figure out the new rent payment, since I’ll clearly be paying now as well,” Harold said, pulling their mouths apart to say so, and John nodded. And he kept nodding, until Harold cupped his head to stop him and kiss him again.


	38. Supraliminal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “John, what are you— _oh._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Supraliminal: 1. existing above the threshold of consciousness; 2. Adequate to evoke a response or induce a sensation._
> 
>  
> 
> I learned a new word! Also, it's Back Massage Tuesday, it seems--yay!

With age, Harold had learned many times over, came the unpleasant reality of sporadic aches and pains throughout the day-to-day. Generally, it wasn’t bad enough to really affect him—but oh, that morning he woke up to a tremendously stiff neck and splitting headache.

He prepared for work alongside John, pushing away the unpleasant strain of straightening his back. John, of course, eyed him with unmasked concern, but he refused to acknowledge the look, and forewent breakfast at the table in order to avoid John’s worrying. He left with a quick kiss on John’s cheek and dashed out the door, bagel in hand, on his way to the library.

Nathan had, in fact, established a firewall the likes of which Harold would be seriously impressed to see come down, which didn’t really surprise him—despite his abhorrent nature, the man really was rather self-sufficient.

He spent the afternoon coding, putting the finishing touches on the Machine’s programming; or perhaps more accurately, the finishing touches on the finishing touches. Although the Machine was still, in Harold’s opinion, nowhere near ready to be fully activated, it had come a long way. Soon, Nathan seemed sure, they’d be able to reach out to the American government—and then it would be in the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency. A part (a small part) of Harold was reluctant to hand it over. Nathan joked that it was because Harold considered the Machine his very own flesh and blood.

A ridiculous notion, certainly.

Regardless of the cause of the faint nagging in the back of Harold’s mind, he was determined to complete their project of so many years, should it take another two months or eighteen. This dedication, unfortunately, _also_ came with sporadic back and neck pains, especially when sitting at an office desk for nearly twelve hours straight.

He returned to the apartment, made a beeline for the couch, and collapsed on it, rubbing his neck uselessly.

Suddenly from behind came two warm, firm hands overtop his, and he startled, wincing at the sharp twinge in his neck.

“John, what are you— _oh_ ,” Harold said, as John’s hands began moving gently but vigorously against his neck and shoulders. His hands slipped down into his lap and he sighed, leaning back into the touch.

“You looked like you needed a back rub,” John said, his voice lilting in that gravelly, playful way that made Harold melt just a bit every time he heard it. He sighed again, allowing John’s hands to move up against his shoulders, methodically untwisting every knot in him with each press of his thumbs.

Slowly, his hands came around to loosen Harold’s tie, undo the top two buttons to allow his hands to move past Harold’s shirt, touch bare skin. Harold bit his lip, partially because of the sudden transition from casual massage to supraliminally sexual, but mostly because _oh,_ John’s hands were making every single twinge in his back disappear without a trace, and it felt _amazing_.

“Oh, Joh- _hng_ -n,” Harold hiccupped, when the man’s hands finally disappeared—more than several minutes after the pain had dispersed—and left in their place a pleasant, tingling sensation all across his body. “Thank you.”

“Any time, Harold,” John said, dropping beside him on the couch and flashing him a grin. Harold smiled helplessly back, placing his head on John’s shoulder, and savored the acutely pleasing feeling of John’s hand nestling warmly into his own.


	39. A Single-Minded Devotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John was like sunshine peeking through the winter clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which Harold spends the chapter making lovey-dovey metaphors and similes for the truly incredible love he has for John. If only he'd actually _say_ the words to him.

John was like sunshine peeking through the winter clouds, warm on his cheeks, like a crackling fire in the brick fireplace of a familiar living room and a soft couch. His smile was like the break in a gloriously vicious storm, captivating and entrancing, ethereal just by its mere presence. He was a raw intelligence, a writhing physical force, an angel among people. His hands were strong and work-hardened, his heart delicate and chipped, but still beating with the passion of a child who has not, nor ever will, forget how to fall in love.

His love was brave and selfless and honest, an ever flowing ocean of emotion and desire, need, push, pull. But it was genuine, and dedicated, in a way unlike any other Harold could recall, and he treated him with veneration, devotion so strong like the tide, and he loved like he never would again, like it was nearly all that he could do.

His mouth—ah, his mouth, shaping words and sonnets and prose from every letter of the alphabet with his dark, possessing voice. A sound with the power to lull him to sleep and to revive every animalistic instinct within him at once, hungry and desperate, dominant and brutal. But he was careful with that voice, with that mouth that shaped words into silk (and felt like it, too) and that heart that was so bottomless, so unwhole, a cup waiting to be filled. Harold was firmly dedicated to filling it with himself, unremittingly.

He kissed Harold fervently but gracefully, making with his tongue all the meaning for which words would be superfluous, every piece of him so singularly devoted to his attention. He stroked his hands along Harold’s sides, mapped out every inch, curve and bump, scar and mark. He took great care of Harold’s hands, which he treated with a reverence not quite like any other part of him, kissing the soft skin on the backs and brushing his cheeks against the palms. He looked at Harold with eyes that spoke volumes of his dedication, his boundless adoration.

Harold couldn’t help but imagine how to repay the favor. He would press John down on the newly turned down bedspread, mouth at his neck and shoulders and cock, run trailing fingers over his chest and stomach and back, forming records of their own. And John would shudder, blindly, blissfully, as Harold caressed him with hands and words and the subtle press of himself against his body. John would cling to the sheets and the rail of the bed until that was no longer enough, and his arms would draw around Harold’s neck and cling, desperately, to him.

They would move together, and touch, and whisper sweetly to one another, until John’s words had all but left him and Harold’s too, and when the cascade of want and thought and desire left them they would lay near, and breathe, and smile.

They did, eventually; but that was saved for later, when the day had drawn to a close and they were alone, secluded and safe. It was still early evening, and Harold was more than content to let John sprawl over him, showering him with unbridled affection on the couch in their apartment. He was happy to listen to the sounds John made as he explored every part of Harold, especially the ones directly after he made his _own_ sounds, because those were the ones John made that sounded almost a little bit like gratitude. Like Harold had given him a gift, allowing him to taste, to feel and savor.

He shut his eyes and ran his fingers through John’s hair, allowed pure elation to overtake him, and though John sounded slightly pained when he yanked a bit too hard to pull him back up and meet his lips, he immediately melted into the touch.


	40. Mister Popular

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harold ran all the way to the emergency room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how dare i.

When they went to work at the same time, of course, they took a taxi—John had a longer drive, and generally after a quick hug or kiss goodbye Harold would be the first to take his leave, cross the park and arrive at the IFT building. On days when he went to the library, which was luckily not a terribly long stretch of a distance from IFT, he rode the taxi, kissed and waved goodbye, and when John was out of sight he crossed the street on the opposite side of the building and headed off.

He was at IFT on that day, updating schedules, revising meeting structures, and in his spare time making adjustments to the pages of code he had for the Machine. It was a slow day, but Harold didn’t particularly mind those; he liked when things were slow, stress-free, and simple, especially when his life so very rarely was.

Nathan came barging into his office as always, and Harold barely looked up when he slammed open the door. But then the frantic sounds tumbling out of his mouth started to form coherent words, and Harold’s hands stilled on the keyboard.

“67th and Madison,” Nathan panted, “There was a crash. It’s all over the news—I saw him, Harold, they were putting him in an ambulance—”

“What hospital?” Harold demanded.

Nathan didn’t try to convince him to take a car, even though the hospital was four miles away. They made it in just over half an hour by foot. At least, Harold did. The nurse closest to the door did a double take at the sight of him running through the door, a sweating, bespectacled man in a fitted suit with crazed eyes. He didn’t care.

“John Reese,” Harold said, fiercely. “The accident on 67th and Madison. There was a man named Johnathan Reese.”

The nurse pointed him down the hall farthest to the left. Harold ran all the way to the emergency room.

It took what felt like centuries, but when Nathan arrived and loudly demanded for him to be allowed through, Harold was finally led to the hospital room where they’d taken John.

He was laying in bed with a pristine white bandage around his head and a gray sling on his arm. He looked up as the door flew open, and Harold rushed to him.

“Harold—” John said, as Harold dove into him, kissing him feverishly, reprimanding him for not being more careful as if he’d been in control of the vehicle.

“—you could have been hurt, John, you could have _died_ —”

“I’m sorry, Harold,” John apologized profusely, accepting Harold’s misplaced rage and stroking his cheek as he did so, letting him clutch his hand in a crushingly tight grip.

“What matters is that he’s alright,” Nathan said, reaching out to rest a hand on Harold’s trembling shoulder. “He’s safe.”

Harold eventually nodded and sat back in the chair, anger spent. He had managed, somehow, to keep himself in one piece for the excruciating hour—had it only been an hour?—since Nathan had told him of the accident. But now he was breaking, tiny fractures in his composure that John could see clear as the sunlight pouring through the window, and he had his undamaged arm open and reaching out for Harold before Harold had time to realize that his head was coming down. He buried his face against John’s side, clinging to the blankets, and John stroked his head soothingly, murmuring to him, comforting him.

“I should be—” Harold tried to say, sitting up and touching John’s slowly purpling face delicately. “Comforting _you_.”

John smiled, leaning into him, squeezing his hand. “I’m okay. I’ve been through worse; I’m okay.”

“You might _not_ have been,” Harold said, feeling another swell of terror, a hollowing, clawing feeling in his chest. He leaned down again, his forehead resting on John’s shoulder, and closed his eyes.

“John, we just got the call—!” A woman and man in museum security uniforms came running in, stopping short when they saw Harold and Nathan.

“Joss,” John said, smiling at the woman. “It wasn’t bad, really. Just a broken arm.”

“And that gauze wrapped around your head is just for decoration, then,” Joss snapped, while the curly-haired man behind her eyed Harold and Nathan suspiciously.

“Since when do you have white collar pals?” He asked.

“Lionel, Joss, this is Harold,” John said, as Harold dipped his head at them as politely as he could when he doubtlessly looked like a half drowned rat. “And that’s Nathan.”

“Nathan _Ingram_?” Joss said, incredulous. “ _IFT_ Nathan Ingram?”

“A famous, world renowned billionaire came all the way down to see your sorry ass?” Lionel snorted, crossing his arms. “Look who’s suddenly Mister Popular.”

Harold prickled at the man’s tone, but John only smiled, shrugging with his good shoulder. “What can I say, Lionel? I’m starting to get the hang of this whole ‘making new friends’ thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a ridiculous thing for John/Lionel/Joss bromance feels and i have this whole headcanon about their childish antics as museum security guards.


	41. Finding the Right Person

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “To come with us, obviously,” Nathan said. “You and John. We can double date!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sudden jump forward in time to early April. Nathan finally gets a date, but he refuses to go without Harold. A picnic out in the country? Why not?
> 
> (disclaimer: I've never been to Sullivan. I'm guessing there's some big open field within driving distance of New York City, somewhere.)

“Her name is Samantha. Samantha Groves. We’re going out this weekend.”

“That’s wonderful, Nathan,” Harold said, not looking up from his computer. “I’m unfathomably happy for you.”

“So you’re free?”

“Free for what?”

“To come with us, obviously,” Nathan said. “You and John. We can double date!”

“You do recall that the original intended purpose of finding you someone to start a relationship with was to _extract_ you from mine and John’s, yes?” Harold replied.

Nathan sighed heavily, as if _he_ was the one being difficult. “Come on, Harold, it’ll be fun. We’ll get out of the city—go on a drive!”

Harold’s gaze finally flinched away from the computer screen to glare at Nathan. John’s accident had been nearly two months ago, and while his concussion had passed and his arm was healing well, Harold still actively worked to avoid letting John ride through the city. John calmly accepted Harold’s overprotective doting, for which he very quickly learned there was no escape. Nathan, of course, was firm in his assertion that Harold was overreacting. No one had been _seriously_ injured, he reminded Harold. Apparently, a broken arm no longer constituted as a serious injury.

Completely oblivious to Harold’s glowering, Nathan continued to elaborate on his plans for the upcoming Saturday. “We can pack a lunch, go out to one of those big empty fields in Sullivan County—it’ll be fantastic!”

“Oh yes, and I’m certain that the owners of those big empty fields will appreciate four city-slickers loitering on their _personal property_ ,” Harold agreed, nodding profusely. Nathan rolled his eyes at him.

“You know, I bet if I called John, he’d be really eager to come,” Nathan mused, and before Harold could protest, “He loves doing absolutely anything with you. You know that.”

Harold sighed. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

“Absolutely not.” He grinned. “I’ll call Sam and let her know, shall I?”

-

Samantha Groves was a beautiful young woman with bright, intelligent eyes and a wicked smile. She had a vibrant and playful, if somewhat off-putting attitude, and though introduced herself politely to Harold and John, seemed perfectly content to busy herself distracting Nathan. The two hour drive to Sullivan consisted of Nathan chatting amorously about computer programming to a fascinated Sam, while Harold and John quietly held their own discussion in the back.

Nathan had packed an abundance of meal options, everything from lunch meat to cheese to fruit and vegetables—and copious amounts of wine, which Harold insisted they drink sparingly. For the first half hour while they ate, Harold sat stiffly in place, eyes on the horizon in anticipation for angry farmers to come charging up the hillside.

He eventually relaxed when John’s hand sneaked across to rest over his, and a gentle smile flitted across his face.

They spent the entire afternoon there, talking and laughing (and playing Frisbee, after a bit of pleading from Nathan). They watched the sun set, the moon rise; by then Harold and John had moved a bit away from Nathan and Sam, hijacking the picnic blanket and enveloping themselves together against the evening chill.

“My,” Harold breathed, staring upwards. “The stars.”

“They’re beautiful,” John murmured, resting his head atop Harold’s.

“I haven’t seen a night sky like this since I was young,” Harold said. “I forgot how captivating it is.”

“Do you miss it, living in New York?” John asked.

Harold waited a moment considering. “No, not really. I mean, it’s really very striking. But there’s something so… _human_ about the city. I honestly can’t imagine going back now that I’ve lived there so long. Perhaps when I’m very old.”

“A little villa out in the country,” John whispered. “With fireflies. And a garden.”

“And children,” Harold added.

John looked down at him, surprised. “You want children?”

“Well, I’m not vehemently against the idea,” Harold admitted. “I can’t say I’ve given it an abundance of thought; I’m really a rather solitary man. But, yes. I think—it might be nice to raise children one day. With the right person.”

He really hadn’t given it much consideration. He didn’t technically exist, after all; it would be difficult for a made up man to have a family. But with the right person… with John. He’d certainly love to try.

He looked at John. John smiled down at him, rubbing his thumb along the palm of Harold’s hand.

“Yes.”


	42. Making New Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, who’s the new guy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *early post* A Joss/Lionel/John BroT3 flashback bc I just couldn't help myself.

“So, who’s the new guy?”

Joss followed Lionel’s gaze across the museum lobby to rest on the solitary figure looming beside the entrance. He was tall and gangly, with speckled gray hair and a stony, no-nonsense expression, though Joss could tell that he couldn’t have been older than forty-five. He was a newish member of the museum security staff—ish as in he’d been around for at least a few weeks, although Joss had yet to learn his name.

“Dunno,” she said, swatting Lionel’s propped up feet off of the font desk.

He was solitary, quiet and serious, and had the posture of a military man, but held himself like a broken one. Joss was intrigued—curiosity was a trait she had long harbored, and likely never would lose—and, being far more of a people person than Lionel, was the one to suggest striking up a discussion.

“What are you, insane?” Lionel said, standing up and giving Joss a pointed glare. “The guy’s clearly a _nutcase_ , and you want to go get all buddy-buddy with him?”

“Fusco, would it kill you to get up and say hi to a coworker, for once?”

“Maybe, if he keeps looking at me like he wants to squeeze my head like a grape,” Lionel said, risking a glance at him. The guard seemed to sense the look, and looked up immediately, locking eyes with Lionel for one terrifying moment. Lionel faced Joss again, intently.

“Maybe if you wouldn’t keep looking at him like he was a murder suspect, he’d stop looking at you like that,” Joss suggested. “He’s probably just as scared of you as you are of him.” Lionel huffed at her and rolled his eyes.

“All right, if you want to take your life in your hands and go say hi to Mr. Angry Eyebrows, go right ahead. I like my head in the shape it is, thank you. Hey, Joss—!”

Before he could stop her, she was waving her hand at the guard, gesturing at him to come closer. He stared at them for a long time, still as a statue, before finally he came closer, stalking across the marble floor towards them like a panther on the prowl.

“He’s definitely gonna cut us up into little pieces and chuck us into the harbor,” Lionel whispered sharply to Joss as he approached.

Joss elbowed him softly in the stomach, and before he had time to catch his breath and make a break for it, the guard had reached them.

“Yes?” he intoned, his voice dark and predatory, and Lionel stared at him. Joss was quick to recover, smiling at him warmly, and offering a hand.

“Hi, I’m Joss Carter. You’re new here, right?”

The guard looked at her critically, as if trying to puzzle together what her true motives were for inviting him over, before nodding once. “Reese. John.”

“Nice to meet you, John,” she said. “And this is Lionel Fusco.”

“Hey,” Lionel muttered, awkwardly. Joss elbowed him again.


	43. Safety First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Indeed,” Harold replied, pecking John’s lips again. “We’re both clean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (in which we all casually ignore the vague time-place setting of this chapter; clearly, John has full use of his arm again.)
> 
> Eyyy, more smut! From John's POV, this time.
> 
> And fluff; of _course_ there's fluff!

John arrived home before Harold that evening, as usual. He was reading Harold’s copy of _Imajica_ with Bear sleeping at his feet as he awaited the man’s return—he’d never read the book before, but suffice to say it was unique, engaging and riddled with thought-provoking concepts and ideas; much like the man who owned it.

Harold’s brownstone, it turned out, had harbored startlingly little by way of personal artifacts: everything he owned fit very easily into John’s apartment, with only the faintest of rearrangement to the furniture.

(John had noticed that the bird figurine was nowhere to be found with the items, and a small, aggravating part of himself had stayed awake for several nights after, trying to convince him that, even as Harold lay curled asleep in his arms with his suits lined pristinely in their closet, he still didn’t really want to be with him. It was a very tiny part of him, at that point in their relationship, but present nonetheless, for a multitude of reasons in his past he preferred not to consider without a full bottle of liquor within reaching distance.)

The only thing, really, that Harold had in exorbitant abundance, was books. So many, in fact, that John very quickly ran out of shelf space; they lined the walls, in waist-high stacks all over the apartment, and for the first several days John had managed to run into and knock over more than a few. He had resolved to purchasing a wide array of bookshelves to accommodate the extensive literary collection—that or a mid-sized storage locker.

Until then, he was careful not to leave any coffee mugs on the stacks while Harold was in the general vicinity, lest he get caught (the first time he’d gone through a severe tongue-lashing, followed by an irked, tense silence which he very much wished to avoid rekindling). He also grew into the habit of reading any and every novel that caught his eye… which turned out to be most of them. Harold had an extensive, widespread taste for impeccable literature from poetry to prose. John couldn’t really say that he was surprised.

When Harold did arrive, John and Bear were alerted of his presence by the heavy thud of his briefcase onto the floor.

John looked up from his book, dog-earing the page automatically—then quickly unfolding it before Harold saw and snatching up a spare bookmark from the table—and rising to his feet as Harold approached.

“Evening,” John managed to get out before Harold reached him, beaming, and had captured his lips in a warm, ardent kiss.

“—How was work?” John squeaked out when his mouth was released; Harold’s arms had wound around his neck and his body was pressed solidly against his, their faces mere inches apart as Harold looked up at him happily.

“The test results came in,” Harold informed him. With his brain only working at half speed after the sudden assault on his mouth, John could do nothing but stare blankly down at him.

“Test results?” he asked.

“Indeed,” Harold replied, pecking John’s lips again. “We’re both clean.”

“…Oh,” John said, finally catching Harold’s meaning, and with a wide smile of his own he tipped Harold’s head back and kissed him in return.

Harold led them backwards down the hall to the bedroom, resolutely ignoring the immense difficulty of doing so when they were still wrapped around each other. John was more than complacent when Harold pushed him into the bed and climbed atop him, kissing him feverishly. It had come as a bit of a surprise to John when he learned that Harold was so _in charge_ when it came to sexual intimacy; though he had absolutely no problem relinquishing control in such… capable hands.

Harold kissed with the energy of a college student—but the finesse of a very, very experienced man. He had efficiently discovered and memorized every single one of John’s most sensual areas: his stomach, the hollow of his throat—basically the entire surface area of his neck, really—and the skin behind his ears. Harold was panting against that part, sending hot rushes through John’s body, making him squirm while strong hands and hips kept him pinned down, rolling against him.

John, of course, was not to be outdone, and snatched up one of Harold’s hands and kissed it, blithely. He’d noted the slight chills that arched through the man’s body when he rubbed his thumb against the sensitive skin; it was intimate on a wondrous level, and Harold shuddered over him, dropping his head forward, staring down.

John released Harold’s hand reluctantly as it was pulled away, then was directly transferred from disappointment to unrestrained surprise and desire when Harold scaled down the length of his body, unbuttoning his shirt and pressing a line of quick, feathery kisses down his chest.

John let his head fall back, open mouthed and gasping, completely undone without even really being touched, the very thought of Harold going down on him enough to evoke the strongest sense of intense want, bordering on need; Harold stopped touching him and with reluctance he pulled his head up to look down at the man, who was smiling amusedly at him.

“Are you quite alright up there, John?” Harold asked innocently, and John let out a breathy laugh, nodding at him.

“Yeah, Harold, I’m goo— _ohh_ ,” John hissed, fisting his hands in the blankets, keening into Harold’s mouth. They’d done this before, if sparingly, with protection preventing an excess of skin-to-skin contact in those areas. This, this was _vastly_ different.

Harold mad a soft, critical noise in the back of his throat and pulled off, nipping at John’s hip before grabbing one of John’s hands and pressing it firmly into his hair.

John laughed again, at Harold’s mercy, and clung to him for dear life until he came with a strangled moan into Harold’s mouth. Harold crawled back up to meet John, spent and sweating, and kissed him slowly, his own taste faint but still present in his mouth.

Loose and dizzy with pleasure, John pleaded gently against Harold’s neck until the man finally took mercy and pressed into him.

-

Laying there in the dark, with Harold’s head on his chest and their fingers laced together on his chest, John slowly drifted into a deep, contented sleep. Before Harold, he hadn’t been able to sleep so well, so peacefully. And his demons still haunted him, ceaselessly; refusing to allow him to believe he could be so happy with another person again, after all he’d been through.

After all he’d done.

But for that moment, with Harold’s hot breath on his bare skin, hair just lightly tickling John’s nose, he thought that maybe it was okay to pretend that he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *vaguely hints at John's secretive, tragic past and the possibility of an actual plotline for this fic*


	44. Work Emergency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh my god,” Harold gasped.

Harold received the text, a hasty ‘no lunch 2day- work emergency’ around eleven thirty in the morning. He couldn’t for the life of him imagine what might constitute as a work emergency for a museum security guard, but John hadn’t intentionally avoided one of their lunch breaks since they’d been together, so it must have been extremely time-sensitive.

Both concerned for John’s appetite and eager to avoid becoming the third wheel for Nathan and Sam (who had become very quickly attached at the hip; a good thing for Harold’s personal life, as Nathan was no longer trying to barge his way into it, but not so fantastic for the Machine, which was seeing less and less of them now that they were both so engrossed in their respective relationships), he picked up a bag lunch from a vendor on his way to the museum in hopes of at least getting John to eat _something_.

Harold learned what a work emergency for a museum security guard was when he was very nearly trampled into the ground by a swarm of four hundred and sixty-three elementary schoolers on their way into the same building.

“Oh my god,” Harold gasped as he was dragged out of the fray by Mr. Fusco, John’s—erm—business acquaintance whom he had met at the hospital.

“Yeah, welcome to Field Trip Day,” he muttered as they took shelter behind the front desk.

“My goodness,” Harold murmured as he spotted John and Ms. Carter, who were making their way through the sea of knee-to-hip high toddlers and children, attaching day passes to their wrists as the teachers valiantly attempted to wrangle together their students. “I’ve never seen something so terrifying.”

“You have _no_ idea,” Fusco agreed. “I thought John sent you a message that he was too busy to meet for lunch.”

“He did,” Harold said, placing the bag on the table nearby. “But he has this frightfully unbearable habit of forgetting to eat if I don’t make him—have you ever seen him eat? It’s like he hasn’t tasted a warm meal in months.”

“Oh, so you’re _both_ the clingy, overprotective one,” Fusco mused, barely registering the scalding glare Harold shot his way. “I guess that’s a good thing. You probably won’t get sick of each other, that way.” He grabbed a fistful of brightly colored strips, and raised an eyebrow at him. “So, Glasses, any chance you’d be willing to give your boyfriend and the rest of us a hand?”

Fifteen minutes later, John looked up to see Fusco—and _Harold?_ —coming towards them from the other side of the mass, slapping on pass bracelets as they struggled onward. Fusco’s face was set in stony, resigned determination, whereas Harold looked very much like he was ready to run screaming from the museum if any of the children attempted to interact with him directly. John flashed him a reassuring smile, and Harold matched it wearily, before his attention was pulled away.

They managed to tag every single child before one-thirty, and then they were off and in the hands of the tour guides.

“God rest their souls,” Fusco said solemnly, sipping a cranberry juice box. Carter raised her own in agreement.

“Lord,” Harold panted, sinking down into a bench. John sat down beside him, offering him a pineapple juice box. He accepted it gratefully wiping his brow. “That was frightfully intense. I think I may have to take a break from dealing with children younger than seventeen for some time.”

“So, no kids for the villa, then?” John asked, a tease. Harold smiled at him, nudging his shoulder.

“Not right now, no. Did you see the lunch I brought you?”

“Yeah; pastrami, right? Thanks, Harold.”

“Any time at all,” Harold replied, patting his hand gently. “So long as I don’t have to label any more children.”


	45. Some Time on Some Lazy Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a rather satisfying feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short fluff. busy day. i am always an episode behind (finally got around to watching 4x15, just in time for 4x16 to air. *sigh*). well, i have work (sleep) to get done, so. enjoy!

It was a rather satisfying feeling, Harold thought; a book in one hand, the other stroking John’s head as they sat together on the couch. He decided that he really never _had_ felt like this: so comfortable, so in place… so loved.

Things had been busy after the field trip fiasco for several weeks, with Harold and John working odd, unfavorable hours for their respective careers. After a half day at the library Harold returned to the apartment for lunch, expecting John to be asleep before his night shift at the museum. In fact he had been; however, despite Harold’s attempts to keep the noise to a minimum, John came shuffling out of the bedroom with his hair mussed and his eyes sanded shut, and (ignoring Harold’s scolding protests) proceeded to refill Harold’s tea mug, drop onto the couch and put his head in Harold’s lap.

He ran his fingers through John’s hair, feathery and light through the soft strands. John sighed, asleep once more, and Harold smiled minutely. He was like a puppy—save for the fact that, unlike Bear, John didn’t literally bowl him over when he tried to come in to the apartment. He sipped at his tea, turned a page in his book—Pride and Prejudice, a rather old read but a satisfying love story nonetheless—and settled back in his seat.

His cell phone rang on the side table and he immediately snatched it up, continuing to stroke John’s hair as he murmured and shifted at the sound.

“Hello?” Harold whispered into the receiver.

“I seem to recall agreeing that we’d meet around one at the library,” Nathan answered.

“I was… unexpectedly caught,” Harold replied, as John finally relaxed once more beneath him. “I’m on my way right now.”

“Alright, Harold, but hurry—I’ve got a few new tests I want to run that might help us smooth down a few more kinks in the system.”

“I’ll be there soon,” Harold said, hanging up before Nathan could add anything further. He looked down at John, a wave of mild disappointment within him, and brushed the back of his ear.

“John, I have to get up,” Harold told him, gently, and John muttered something incoherent against him and gripped his pant leg in a tight fist.

With great care, Harold extracted himself from John’s grasp and tucked a pillow under his head, drawing the curtains of the windows and gently placing Pride and Prejudice back in its place on the counter. When he turned around John was staring at him with wide, too-awake eyes that made it clear he was still running purely on fumes. With a sigh, Harold made his way back to him, bending down to press a kiss to his temple and whisper “Go to sleep, John. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With a reluctant hum of agreement, John pulled Harold down for a quick peck to the lips before squeezing his hand and letting himself rest against the pillow. Harold petted John’s head one more time before he went, storing away the memory for some time on some lazy afternoon, when he would have the time to do it again.


	46. The Dinner Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And how’d you meet Harold?” Will asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special Guest Star: Will Ingram!!

“Will’s coming to Manhattan for a visit this weekend,” Nathan told Harold at the library.

“It has been quite some time since he’s come to visit,” Harold mused, not looking away from the computer screen. He could sense, however, Nathan’s eyes on him, and the smug little smirk no doubt on his face.

“Aw, do you miss your nephew?” Nathan teased, and Harold glared at the screen.

“He’s not my nephew,” Harold grouched, eyeing Nathan’s reflection. “He’s your son.”

“We both know he likes you more, _Uncle Harold_ ,” Nathan mimicked, ruffling his hair as he walked past.

“That isn’t true.”

“Yes it is. It’s alright; I don’t mind. He appreciates that you’ll at least _admit_ to keeping secrets from him. I just…” he winced. “I can’t even do that.”

Shrugging off the unpleasant feelings, Nathan reverted back to his usual cheerful self, and spun Harold’s chair around. Harold squawked, ruffled, and glared dourly at him.

“What?”

“You’ve got to come out for dinner with us,” Nathan pleaded, smiling sweetly. “I’m bringing Sam. John could come!”

Much as the idea of going out for dinner with John appealed to him—they hadn’t had the chance to formally go out in a woefully long time, and Harold very dearly missed seeing John in a suit with the top three buttons of his dress shirt undone—Harold was a bit apprehensive to go out with Nathan _and_ Sam.

Sam seemed like a… nice enough woman, but quite honestly, Harold didn’t very much like her. She had rather worrisome ideas about artificial intelligence (a subject Nathan had breached during one of the inescapable luncheons Harold had attended with him) regarding just how much power it should have… Harold hoped rather fervently that she would never learn of the Machine, or else she might get the very wrong idea about its primary purpose.

She got on famously with Nathan, however; the two of them fit together like pieces to a puzzle, and since Nathan would absolutely never reveal such a valuable secret, he wasn’t particularly worried.

Then again, as Harold considered the double date, Will would also be there. Though he was reluctant to admit it, Will _was_ a bit like a nephew to him. And it had been far too long since they’d talked.

“I’ll talk to John and see if he’s free,” Harold said, and Nathan applauded him.

“Fantastic! I’ll call Sam—you know, she’s really quite fond of you, Harold. She thinks your ideas on super evolved technology is fascinating…”

-

They had dinner at a hole in the wall restaurant near Browns Avenue—a four star hole in the wall, but knowing Nathan that missing star was a serious shock to Harold’s system. Will met them inside and immediately through his arms around Harold and Nathan, looking as pleased to see them as any young man possibly could be. He greeted Sam with a polite, chipper handshake and John with the same, though his eyes grazed John up and down with just enough vague suspicion to make his smile a little too tight on his face.

“So, how’s school been?” Nathan asked.

“I’m graduating next semester,” Will told him after taking a sip of wine.

“Graduating? Why, my god, wasn’t I just dropping you off at your elementary school last month?” Nathan complained, putting an arm around his son and hugging him close. “Time certainly flies, doesn’t it, Harold?”

“Indeed it does,” Harold agreed compliantly, aiming for the conversation to be quickly diverted from himself and John. John’s hand had, as it usually did when he was bored and Harold was near, strayed over to capture his in his lap, and he was now caressing it reverently underneath the table with soft, fluttering touches to his palm and fingertips that left Harold feeling entirely too light-headed for intelligent conversation. Will was eyeing them with an expression of clear incredulity, and Harold tried to smile passively at him.

“I’m quite pleased to see you back in Manhattan again, Will,” Harold told him, truthfully. “Things have been feeling a little empty without you around.”

“I’m sure you’ve found something to occupy your time with,” Will replied, glancing at John. John looked up at him, half his attention still on Harold’s hand, and smiled.

“Harold told me a lot about you,” John said. “You want to go to Africa, right?”

“Yes, there’s a medical team there I’d like to get to work with, but it will be a few more years before I’m applicable,” Will told him. “What do you do, John?”

“I’m a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” John said. “Not as exciting as Africa, I suppose. But it pays the bills.”

“And how’d you meet Harold?” Will asked.

Harold, fully recognizing Will’s attempts to assess John’s adequacy as his date, became immediately defensive. “I think we’d all rather discuss something aside from—”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s a wonderful story, Harold,” Sam sighed in that whispery, chirping tone she had when she was toying with him, and Harold shifted in his seat, preparing to protest again.

“It’s not a very long story,” John said, before Harold could argue. “Harold was at the museum, sneaking pictures of the artwork when he thought I wasn’t looking. It’s against the rules, of course, but generally I tend to let it slide with people who aren’t too obnoxious, and aren’t using flash.

“Harold wasn’t doing either, but he seemed a little upset, and for some reason I just really wanted to get that little crease in his forehead to go away, so—I gave him my number.

He smiled, a little dreamily like he was going back in time. “A few days later I had a call from him on my answering machine—I’d been hoping that he’d decide to call back, but after the first day I just assumed that he must have thrown the card away.” He laughed to himself. “Carter and Fusco—my coworkers at the museum—wouldn’t let me hear the end of it after that. I couldn’t stop smiling all day. I might have been scaring some of the older couples, actually.”

“How _sweet_ ,” Sam gushed. Will, apparently satisfied, nodded.

“I just want to make sure that you know if you hurt my uncle, I’ll make you seriously regret it,” Will warned.

“William,” Harold snapped, while John simply nodded in understanding.

“I know. Your father told me the same thing when we first met.”

Harold turned sharply to him, before aiming a glare at Nathan. “What? When?”

“At his apartment,” John said calmly, “While you were in the bathroom.”

“I told him that if he broke your heart, I’d cut off his toes.” Nathan laughed into his drink. “Calm down, Harold—you’re getting that crease in your forehead John doesn’t like. Besides, I know that John’s a good, smart man know; there’s nothing to worry about. But if you _do_ step out of line with him, rest assured you’ll be suffering the wrath of a very powerful businessman _and_ New York and Africa’s most valuable doctor.”

“Don’t worry,” John said, as though the idea of bringing pain to Harold was enough to make him sick to his stomach. Harold cupped his hand, coaxing him back into the soothing rhythm of his fingers gliding over Harold’s skin, and the conversation finally, thankfully, turned away from them for the rest of the evening.


	47. The Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harold, _John whispered, a plea._

“Ice cream?”

Harold glanced up from his laptop to see John entering the apartment with a half-gallon each of chocolate-chip cookie dough and strawberry ice cream—both his favorites, though how John had managed to uncover those tidbits of information during the late winter season, Harold had no idea.

“It’s a bit cold out for frozen desert,” Harold pointed out, but nodded when John held up the cookie dough.

He filled an obnoxiously large cereal bowl and carried it over to the couch, sitting next to Harold and propping his feet up on the coffee table, handing him a spoon. When they finished, John ignored Harold’s suggestion of washing out the bowl right away and instead proceeded to lick clean the inside of Harold’s mouth, cupping his jaw and murmuring in wordless appreciation as Harold’s fingers scrolled through his hair and tightened at the nape of his neck.

They watched _The Wolf of Wall Street_ on Netflix, with John nestled tightly into Harold’s body, arms around his waist and face pressed into his neck, occasionally lipping the exposed skin and sighing when Harold turned his head around to place a kiss on his forehead.

The movie ended around eleven and Harold had just enough time to yawn before John was practically hauling him off of the couch and towards the bedroom.

“Is something wrong?” Harold asked as they prepared for bed, John’s eyes focused intently on the carpet as he unbuttoned his work shirt and pants. He had barely spoken a few words since his return home after work, though he also hadn’t left Harold’s side in the same length of time. He shook his head, making pointed eye contact and smiling reassuringly at Harold when he only gazed back at him worryingly in response.

They crawled into bed and John’s warm body heat instantly overtook Harold, and though he intended to pry more information from the man about his unusual behavior he was overtaken by sleep.

-

_Dark. Rain. Cold. Hurt._

_Something sharp. Wet. Blood, maybe._

_Where was Private Anderson? Corporal Kean? John struggled to turn his head. NO. That hurt too much._

_Dead. They were dead. His ears were ringing. An explosion._

_There was a bunker, somewhere. He crawled to it, through the sand, the salty sting itching into his cuts as he went. Like acid seeping inside, ripping into him, vicious and unforgiving._

_“John?”_

_She stood in front of the bunker in a ray of light, shimmering and smiling. A beacon, through the cold and dark. He dragged himself towards her._

_“I’m dead, John,” Jessica told him, smiling. “You don’t belong to me anymore.”_

Harold _, John thought. He looked around for him, but no. He wouldn’t be in this place. With the bad things, the dead things, the ones he didn’t know about. John couldn’t tell him those things. Not those things._

_He looked back up at Jessica. But then. It was no longer Jessica._

_Kara._

_Oh, please, don’t._

_She aimed a gun at his head._

Harold, _John whispered, a plea._

_“Nothing personal,” she said. “He’ll miss you.”_

-

“John—John! _Wake up_!”

John sat upright in bed, panting, a cold sweat sending shivers down his body as he scrambled for a foothold in reality. He tightened his fists in the blankets, aware of something wet on his palms. His stomach lurched and tumbled, pounded in time with his thundering heart and ringing ears.

Harold. Harold was there. Harold’s hands were holding onto him, clutching his arm, his voice—

“I’m here, John, it’s alright,” he soothed, nudging John’s chin until he turned to face him fully.

“Harold,” John whimpered. His voice cracked, strained like he’d been yelling. He stared into Harold’s eyes.

“It’s alright, you’re safe here,” Harold told him, brushing back lose strands of hair as they fell into his face. “I’ve got you, you’re safe. Everything’s alright.”

He dropped his head into Harold’s lap, allowed the soothing feeling of his fingers brushing through his hair to overcome him. He shook.

“It’s the anniversary,” John whispered, his voice cracking. “Today. The accident—Jess—it was a month after they brought me back from—there was a bomb—”

He knew that he was babbling, helpless and afraid, lost in a sea of swirling emotion and desperation to forget what had happened and what he’d done in response.

“Hush, John, I have you now,” Harold said, his voice like an anchor, holding John steady, keeping him from falling apart. Harold stroked him through the shaking, then the quiet sobbing, until it became so much John had to bury his face in a pillow instead so he could let the cries overtake him. Harold’s hand never left his back, a reassuring touch that never left, brought him slowly back from the brink as the tears subsided. The shaking resumed.

Eventually, that stopped too. But Harold’s touch remained, long after the sun crested over the horizon and poured into the bedroom window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, this chapter was kind of a fake-out since it started with ice cream and ended with a soul-crushing emotional breakdown (and some more background on John's mysterious past--more mysterious than anticipated, perhaps?)
> 
> anyway, apologies. i have to get up early tomorrow so this was the best i could do on such short notice.


	48. Just Keep Smiling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was more about the thought than anything, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's laaaaaate and i'm sleepy. have some early morning fluff to make up for the previous night's angst.

John’s breathing steadied and he drifted back to sleep around four in the morning. Harold remained wide awake, staring at his lithe, gentle form rising and falling under his hand.

He deserved the world, Harold thought. He deserved all the happiness, all the love and safety in the universe. He deserved to have a smile lighting up his face constantly, a natural skip in his step, a joy that fueled his action and emotion because whatever hell he had been through had clearly been enough to take that joy away. Harold wanted to pull down the moon and sun and the stars and swaddle John in a blanket of warmth and affection, to coddle him and sooth him and give him everything he ever wanted, everything he deserved.

Breakfast might be a halfway decent start.

Around nine o’clock Harold decided it was time to get started. Taking great care not to disturb John, Harold rose from the bed and pulled on a t-shirt—he’d adopted John’s habit of removing them shortly after Valentine’s Day, and discovered that as with all other things, having his bare back pressed against John’s warm, naked chest was a sensation he would never be able not to enjoy—and left to investigate the contents of the kitchen.

Harold was not a cook. It was beyond a matter of whether he was ‘good’ or ‘bad’—he had transcended such options and found himself nestled securely in the role of “that’s okay, Harold, I’ll just do it myself while you set the table.” He had absolutely no intentions of trying to create a culinary masterpiece, as he was under no illusions that any attempt would likely result in just another traumatic event to add to John’s (evidently) long list of trauma.

He pulled out the box of corn flakes and poured a bowl, and a glass of milk along with it. He’d learned that John preferred orange over apple—they were out, it seemed, and Harold fought an intense internal battle with himself about leaving John alone in the apartment for any length of time. After recalling the broken, despairing darkness in his pale eyes Harold decided to forgo the orange in order to maintain proximity with his lover. It was more about the thought than anything, anyway, Harold knew.

He made up a tray with an apple and a buttered muffin from the day before (preserved in a Ziploc bag on the counter) and, feeling bold and acutely determined to make certain that John knew how much he meant to him, attempted to make toast. He managed, if only just, to salvage one of the slices; the other was lost in a charred square that filled the apartment with an acrid, crispy stench.

He carried the tray in to the bedroom and found John still sleeping, half uncovered and bathed in warm sunlight, a breathtaking view. Harold placed the tray lightly on the table beside him and reached over, starting from the nape of John’s neck and slowly working his way up into his hair, back down to the small of his back.

He continued the pattern slowly, making the occasional deviation to press tiny, delicate circles on tenser parts of his spine, until John was roused to consciousness, batting his eyes and eventually landing his focus on Harold.

“Morning,” Harold whispered softly, smiling down at him. John looked beaten, eyes still red and large, heavy bags hanging beneath his eyes. His cheeks were dry, but Harold knew that they were still stained. Despite this, John looked relieved to see Harold, and he relaxed into his touch easily, his gaze straying to the tray with a moment of bewilderment before he looked back at Harold.

“Breakfast?” John asked, sitting up as Harold poured the milk into the bowl.

“I thought it would be a nice start to the day,” Harold replied, handing it to John. John ate, if slower than usual, and Harold could tell that it was primarily for his benefit that he was doing so at all. He accepted that easily, because if pleasing Harold was what it took to get food in his stomach, Harold would be sure to tickle himself pink.

He ate the cereal and sipped at the juice, kindly ignoring the intense, relentless stare Harold had aimed his way as he did so, attuned to every swallow and bite like it were vital data running on a computer screen. He ate half the muffin, then suddenly wrinkled his nose.

“What’s that smell?” he asked.

“I, erm,” Harold coughed, embarrassed. “I’m not exactly the best at making toast.”

In some vain attempt to prove Harold wrong in his analysis of his own inadequacies, John munched down the toast. Afterwards he downed the last of the apple juice, as well as the leftover milk in the bowl, and Harold laughed at him, squeezing his hand as it reached to replace the empty dish on the counter.

“You’re an absolute sweetheart,” Harold told him, affectionately. John squeezed his hand back, smiling in return.

“You made me breakfast—I think that makes you the sweetheart, don’t you?”

“I’d do anything at all to keep that smile on your face,” Harold told him, honestly. John stared at him, in the way he usually did, like he was a puzzle, a reincarnation of perfection, and he kissed Harold’s hand reverently.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Harold told him. “Just keep smiling.”


	49. Playing God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sometimes that’s all we _can_ do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then the PLOT attacked (hopefully) sorry about this chapter's lack of rinchy sweetness.... i'll make it up to you next chapter!!

The next time Harold visited the library, Nathan was waiting for him. And the man was practically vibrating.

“It works, Harry, it _works_!” he shouted, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him violently.

“ _Harold_ ,” Harold snapped, pulling out of Nathan’s grip and fixing his skewed glasses. “What on earth are you—”

“The _Machine_ , Harold, it really works,” Nathan said, his smile brilliant enough to out compete the sun, and Harold stared at him incredulously.

“Yes, Nathan, I’m quite aware of that; I have been _working_ with the damn thing for almost five years now as well, you recall—”

“No, Harold, I mean it can _see,_ ” Nathan emphasized. “It knows, it knows everything and it’s ready, Harold I really think it’s ready!”

“For what, exactly? To fully activate?” Harold was dubious. “I’m not entirely sure, Nathan. Perhaps after a few dozen more tests…”

“I already turned it on,” Nathan told him, and Harold stuttered to a halt.

“ _What?_ ”

“It’s on, it’s running, and _oh_ , Harold, you’ve got to see it run—I’ve never seen anything this breathtaking in my life. It’s looking, right now: checking emails, phone records, security cameras, everything! At this rate, we’ll have up-to-the-second information on every terrorist and big-name baddie in the whole of New York!”

“Oh no, Nathan,” Harold exclaimed, rushing past him to the computer. “Why would you do such an idiotic thing?”

“Hey, c’mon Harold, it’s your baby too,” Nathan argued, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around. “Don’t you want to see what this thing can do?”

“Not before I’m certain it won’t overload the mainframe or worse, actually _give_ us the names of potential terrorists,” Harold snapped, wrenching himself away. “Nathan, what exactly do you expect to do with such a list?”

“Sell it to the government, Harold,” Nathan said. “Isn’t that the whole point?”

“We don’t even know what—” Harold stopped, and stared at the screen.

Nathan leered over his shoulder to take a look as well, and a silence fell that could have echoed from a pin’s drop.

“There can’t be _that_ many terrorists in New York,” Nathan muttered, softly.

“No, there aren’t,” Harold agreed, staring at the list. Hundreds of names. Thousands of names, flashing across the screen.

“They all have dates,” Nathan said, pointing at the time stamps on each. “Some of these are from the first week we turned on the cameras.”

“Elisa Jones,” Harold said to himself, taking out his phone and looking for her name.

“The Machine found her in two thousand and five,” Nathan said, looking at Harold. “Why’d we get it then? Why is the Machine going day by day instead of finding them all at once?”

“I don’t know,” Harold said, showing Nathan the screen. “But Ms. Jones was the victim of a violent domestic dispute that occurred just two days after her name came up. She’s dead.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Nathan mused to himself as Harold looked up another name, one Joseph Green.

“Mr. Green was killed in a train crash less than a week after his name was added to the list,” Harold told him. “Some kind of mechanism malfunction.”

He stared at the picture, at the young gentleman with dark eyes that smiled back. He was killed in two thousand and three.

“Apparently, this guy’s on the NYPD’s most wanted list for multiple counts of armed robbery and two murders,” Nathan said, showing Harold his own device. “His name came up just before the first murder charge came up, looks like.”

Harold could feel the unease growing in his stomach, a slow, dreading twist. “Nathan, those six names—they all came up the same day, recently. Why—”

“April fourteenth,” Nathan said, staring. “You don’t have to look this one up. I remember hearing about the accident on the news.”

“Accident?” Harold echoed, blankly.

“There was a plane crash; a privately owned aircraft came down and crushed a car driving down the interstate. The plane owner had some kind of sick obsession with the family, allegedly. No one survived.”

They fell silent. It was clear to them, now, what was happening. The Machine wasn’t _just_ spitting out the names of potential mass murderers and terrorist organizations, but of small, violent crimes. Bank robberies. Premeditated murder. Public transportation malfunctions.

It could see everything, and it was seeing everything. Every crime, no matter how small when compared to the importance of national security. Harold’s heart dropped.

“This was a mistake,” he said softly. “This whole thing was a mistake.”

Nathan turned around to stare at him, dumbfounded. “What—Harold, are you insane? This is _amazing!_ It knows everything, it can see every bad thing that can happen, and it can give us the names of the people we have to find to stop it—”

“And do you think the government will give a damn about every victim of a marital dispute ending in murder?” Harold shouted, stopping Nathan in his tracks. “No, they won’t. They only care about massive risks, Nathan, not _this_.”

“Are you trying to say that these people don’t _matter_?” Nathan shouted, rising above Harold and bearing down on him furiously. “These are human beings, Harold, we can save these people!”

“We didn’t start building the Machine to save someone, Nathan, we built it to save _everyone_ ,” Harold told him, coldly, seriously. “We built it to hand over to the government so that they could protect the general population, not so that we could play hero for a few unfortunate—”

“You know, when we started this project, you were always talking about the greater good, and the benefit of all of us,” Nathan interrupted, and he stepped back. “I didn’t realize you meant you were willing to sacrifice innocent people.”

“Sometimes that’s all we _can_ do,” Harold argued.

“So, what, now that we’ve built this Machine it’s our right to choose who lives and who dies? Do we get to play God, now?”

“We can’t be expected to protect every single person on this planet from harm, Nathan! Do you seriously want to lay down your own life for a complete stranger?”

“Everyone you know and love was once a stranger to you,” Nathan said quietly. Harold didn’t know how to refute that.


	50. White Winter Hymnal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re rather impatient, this morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some light, early-morning smut after a chapter of depressing moral ambiguity? sounds good to me!
> 
> (named in reference to the song im listening to right now by fleet foxes--in no way pertaining to the chapter (save for perhaps a mood-setting, if this song also makes you feel cheerful and slightly drowsy.)

Harold awoke to the sensation of feather-light kisses being pressed down along the curve of his spine.

“Nn,” he mumbled into his pillow, shying away from the ticklish fingers that grazed along his sides. They pinched, lightly, then gripped his hips, and when he felt cool lips press a light kiss just above the cleft of his bottom, he turned his head to give John a weary glare.

“And what exactly do you plan on accomplishing down there?” Harold asked, and John smiled sweetly up at him.

“Kind of a lot, actually,” he purred, teasing and seductive. “Especially if you get on your side.”

“I think I prefer having you up here,” Harold informed him, and John dutifully scaled his body to capture his mouth in a deep, hungry kiss.

Harold pulled away, making a face at him. “Oh no, absolutely not. Mouthwash, first.”

“Maybe I like the way you taste in the morning,” John murmured, rolling his hips against Harold, but the other man was adamant, and pushed him away. John flopped down on the empty side of the bed, shooting sad eyes at Harold as he rose from the bed and entered the bathroom.

He returned with a toothbrush in his mouth to John laying naked and spread out on the bed, stroking his hand along his cock, staring at Harold with dark, feral eyes.

“You’re rather impatient, this morning,” Harold said around his toothbrush, spitting in the sink and wiping his mouth.

“I was hoping for some warm, sleepy morning sex before work,” John replied when he reentered the room, quickly shedding his own pants and boxers.

“I do apologize for hating the taste of my own rancid breath right after I wake up,” Harold retorted, as he climbed into bed. John sidled up next to him and nuzzled his head underneath his chin, capturing his already hardening cock with his hand. He shuddered pleasantly, his own hand clasping John’s as it moved steadily up and down.

John kissed him, slow and deliberate, and seemed intent on ignoring any and all touching by Harold on his behalf, pinning his free hand to the mattress and fully occupying Harold’s mouth before he could mutter a protest. Any and all arguments he would have presented were null and void to him, anyway, when John’s hand began pumping faster, and he became putty in his lover’s hands.

“I’ve been missing you,” John rumbled against him, slowly beginning to grind his hips against Harold’s side, the movement of his hand never stuttering.

“I haven’t been anywhere else,” Harold said, sucking in a breath as John nibbled on his shoulder.

“You’ve been distant,” John replied, kissing his cheek, his temple. “You’ve also been ignoring Nathan’s calls, so I know it isn’t something I did.”

“Of course not,” Harold sighed, stroking John’s hair as he hummed in satisfaction. “I would tell you outright if I thought you did something wrong. I can’t believe Nathan actually called you to—ah, on second thought, let’s not talk about Nathan right now.”

“Sounds like a plan,” John agreed, exuding amusement, and he finally straddled Harold’s hips and took them both in his hands, and their combined sensitive skin brushing together made them both moan. Harold watched John as he worked them both, so completely devoted to his task yet completely undone, and as he watched John throw his head back as he came with a low cry he reminded himself to make certain this man never forgot how much he was valued.


	51. Unfavorable Routs to the Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever was weighing Harold down had begun to affect his entire life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as much as i enjoy writing this fic, i think it's approaching time for me to retire it. this long, meandering, rinch-filled path has been fun to walk, but i have other more pressing obligations to attend to (school work, college applications, etcetera) which are making it increasingly difficult to write this fic with any semblance of the care and detail i think it deserves. i don't want to drag it out much longer (hopefully, finishing up this fic will allow me to focus on the others i have been putting off.... much more detailed ones that i hope will also be satisfactory to my fellow poi fans.) so now, i move on to what i anticipate being the final multi-chapter arc. brace yourselves!
> 
> (also, i really hope you all have enjoyed reading this. i think i'll be going back to the occasional tiny rinch drabble on tumblr (whiskerknittles) once this fic is done, so if you started this fic for the mindless fluff and smut, you'll likely find it there! thanks for bearing with me on this unplanned journey!)

Despite all John’s attempts throughout the next several weeks to draw out the truth of Harold’s detached mood from the man, he remained a closed book on the subject. Nathan, too, refused outright to explain what was going on between them, which John found surprising and seriously concerning.

There was a large part of him which wanted to give Harold his privacy—having his own secrets, he couldn’t in all fairness be offended by Harold having a few of his own, though he seriously doubted Harold’s secrets were anything compared to his. But even that considered, whatever was weighing Harold down had begun to affect his entire life. His eating patterns had grown erratic, his mood was edgier and more prone to rapid, unexpected changes. It was setting Bear on edge and John as well; John had taken up to prompting romantic outings and comfortable nights in at twice the rate he had before, to make up for the lack of effort and even attention Harold seemed to be devoting to their relationship. It wasn’t so much that John was feeling put out; he was just worried for his lover.

Especially because it wasn’t just _their_ relationship that he had been recently neglecting. He actively avoided answering Nathan’s phone calls and, had John ever been fully convinced that Harold was really Nathan’s secretary, he would have been concerned that he might be fired.

John had suspected, practically since their very first meeting, that Harold was far more to IFT than a secretary; it was a subject Harold casually ignored, and one that John easily accepted as one topic they would never need to discuss. Harold was likely a secret partner, John surmised, within the business. He didn’t mind playing along with the charade, since it made Harold happy and kept things simple.

However, whatever had been happening between Nathan and Harold was slowly growing in tension, and on the day that John left work with Harold fast asleep in bed and returned late that evening to find him still napping in the bedroom, drained and very nearing depressed, he knew that he had no choice but to get involved.

He roused his partner with a gentle hand on his forehead. Harold blinked slowly awake, staring up at John with bleary eyes. He sat up, and wordlessly John handed him the dinner plate—Vietnamese takeout. Harold stared down at it blankly for several seconds, then back up at John.

“Oh, thank you,” he said, and when John didn’t immediately depart, dutifully took a bite from the plate. John left after a third of the plate was gone, suspecting that now that he’d finally started eating, he was likely to continue. But the cycle of oversleeping, skipping work and under eating had to end, sooner than later, even if it meant taking… unfavorable routes to finding out the truth.

Despite the days he took off from work, Harold still always went to work on Tuesdays; the next Tuesday, John decided, he’d have to follow after him, and finally figure out what was going on.


	52. Truth (pt. 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Your name isn't Harold Finch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont want to jump too far ahead of myself, but i'm estimating at most there will only be another four chapters, most likely three. i'll do my best (as always) to update daily, but since this is the final stretch, i want to make sure they're written well.

They shared a taxi on their way to work, as usual. They dropped off Harold first, in front of the IFT building, and John climbed out of the back seat of the taxi to press his warm lips against the other man’s. Harold squeezed his forearm, managing a somewhat sickly smile, and turned towards the building. John climbed back into the taxi, signaled the driver, and they were off.

Harold waved at the taxi until it was safely out of view, and turned on his heel, on his way with an intent purpose to the library.

Nathan would be there, he knew; he had been avoiding going to the library since they’d learned about the names, but by then the need to see their creation would have eaten away at him too much to resist. Much as Harold wanted to avoid the confrontation, he knew that they were simply running out of time. Their machine was spitting out names at a rate of about two a week, if Harold’s calculations were accurate. They couldn’t keep this secret to themselves for much longer, not when one of those names could be a potential threat to national security.

Nathan could understand that; he _had_ to understand that.

Harold reached the library and scaled the stairs, to find Nathan with his sleeves rolled up and arms locked on either side of the desk table, staring blankly at the keyboard. Harold left the door open a couple of inches, weary of the heat. The library had a tendency to be fickle with its temperature.

“Nathan,” Harold started, then stopped. “You know we can’t continue to play this game.”

Nathan looked up at him slowly, a dark glint in his eye. “So the lives of these people—these _innocent_ people—is just a part of some little game we’re playing, I take it?”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Harold chided, stepping closer. That wasn’t fair; the numbers were eating away at him too, just as much as they were Nathan. It kept him up at night, kept him distracted at work. It kept him away from John, his darling John who knew that something was seriously wrong but couldn’t begin to understand what.

“Then what did you mean?” Nathan asked, straightening.

“We can’t continue to ignore what’s right in front of us,” Harold said, gesturing at the computers. “You were right, Nathan. It works. Our machine _works_. Perhaps far better than we ever imagined. But that doesn’t change the fact that we started this project for a reason, and I do not intend on turning around and pretending that what we wanted to do isn’t still a priority of mine, as it should be yours.”

“You think I don’t _care_ about finding terrorists?” Nathan demanded. “We can’t just hand this information over to Central Intelligence without doing something about the names!”

“It’s a little late for that,” Harold informed him, stiffly.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You _contacted them_?”

Harold nodded. “We’ll be meeting with an agent of the United States government within the week, in order to flesh out the details. I’m certain, as I always have been, that once they see what we have accomplished they will—”

“Throw away every single name that isn’t directly connected to a nationally-recognized threat to the public?” Nathan shouted, throwing his hands in the air.

“It isn’t our right to play God, Nathan,” Harold snapped. “We didn’t build the Machine so we could become mysterious superheroes gallivanting through the city streets!”

“Oh, so it’s the government’s right, then, is it? You know what they’ll do with this information, Harold.”

“Yes, Nathan, I do. They’ll destroy it. And as much as it pains me to say—”

“Don’t. If it really pains you to say what I know you’re about to, then just don’t.”

“We have to face the truth sometime, Nathan!”

“Especially now, I suppose, since you’ve taken it upon yourself to—”

“Harold?”

-

John stopped the taxi half a block later and paid the due, and got out of the vehicle. He pulled a dark ball cap over his head and a pair of sunglasses, popped up the collar of his suede jacket (a gift, from Harold) and began the short journey back to the IFT building, his eyes peeled for any sign of Harold.

He spotted the other man half a block away, made a quick pursuit to get himself less than a hundred feet behind, and dropped his pace to match Harold’s.

He clearly knew where he was going, although it was a path entirely foreign to John; in fact, if he were more suspicious, he’d go so far as to say that Harold might have actively avoided walking along these roads with him.

John nearly lost Harold when he made an abrupt left into what he’d assumed to be a dark alley, and he had to rush to catch him again. When he did, all that was to be seen were the coattails of Harold’s jacket disappearing in the shadows, through a shadowed doorway.

After several minutes, John approached the door. It wasn’t locked, and he followed the faint path through large, high-ceilinged corridors to a winding stairwell, littered with library books.

“…our _obligation_ to do what’s right,” Harold’s clear, unmistakable voice rose above the silence, as John came towards a barely cracked doorway, Harold’s form invisible past it.

“This _is_ what’s right, Harold!” Nathan’s voice returned, louder and angrier than John ever recalled hearing it. He stopped, ears perked, instinctively gathering intel from his secure position outside of the meeting room. How many people were in there, he wondered? Why were they in an old, abandoned library? What could they possibly be hiding?

“It isn’t our right to play God, Nathan,” Harold snapped. “We didn’t build the Machine so we could become mysterious superheroes gallivanting through the city streets!”

“Oh, so it’s the government’s right, then, is it? You know what they’ll do with this information, Harold.”

“Yes, Nathan, I do. They’ll destroy it. And as much as it pains me to say—”

“Don’t. If it really pains you to say what I know you’re about to, then just don’t.”

“We have to face the truth sometime, Nathan!”

“Especially now, I suppose, since you’ve taken it upon yourself to—”

“Harold?”

Harold and Nathan fell silent, turning with mirrored looks of shock when John stepped in through the now open doorway, staring past them at the multitude of computer screens, flashing rapidly through long sequences of numbers, clips from what might have been video cameras, ID pictures and mug shots of seemingly random people John had never seen before. Harold stood directly between him and the computers, the color drained from his face, confusion and horror at John’s presence painted across his face.

“John? What are you doing here?” Harold asked, his voice cracking.

“What is all this?” John asked, striding towards them. Nathan made some sort of abbreviated motion to stop John from coming closer, but he very quickly halted himself, looking at Harold helplessly.

John reached the table and looked down at it; manila folders filled with codes and notes were scattered haphazardly over the surface. Pictures of Nathan’s son, Will, sat on the edge of the desk, along with a tiny, glass bird figurine on the corner of the desk, facing the keyboard.

He reached out and picked up Harold’s IFT identification card, registering the man’s sharp intake of breath as he did. The name on the card was Harold Wren.

Harold Wren.

Not Finch.

“Harold…?” John turned around slowly to look at him.

“John, I swear I can explain everything,” Harold said, reaching out for the card. John moved it away from his grasp. “Please understand that I never once kept anything from you that I thought would later come back to hurt you.”

“You’re name isn’t Harold Finch,” John said, flat and listless.

Harold hesitated. “No, it isn’t.”

John held up the ID card. “Is your real name Harold Wren?”

Harold paused again, and this time Nathan shifted behind John, his expression of surprise and incredulity clear on the window’s reflection in front of him.

“I’m sorry, Nathan, I didn’t tell you because it has always been safer for me to remain as anonymous as possible.”

“Of course, _Harold_ ,” Nathan seethed, scowling at him. “Why would I be surprised?”

“Stop it, Nathan,” Harold said, glaring in return. “Every secret I ever kept from you has been kept entirely to protect the both of us from undue harm.”

“I guess that goes for me, too?” John asked, and Harold’s attention returned to him immediately, the fear sparking back up in his eyes.

“John, please—”

“The truth, now,” John told him, and there was no joy in his tone, no pleasure, because whatever it was that Harold was about to tell him, John wasn’t going to like it, and whatever happened next, John knew it was going to hurt.


	53. Truth (pt. 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wanted to say, I love you.

“John, please—” Harold said, taking a step towards him.

“The truth, now,” John said. The hard steel in his voice stopped Harold in his tracks. “Tell me the truth, Harold.”

“I… I will,” Harold said, gazing at John with wide, helpless eyes. “I’ll tell you everything. But, please, John, you have to promise me that you’ll listen to everything I have to say. Please, promise me that you won’t leave before I tell you everything you want to know.”

“Just tell me what’s happening, Harold,” John said, sounding guarded, weary, but with a tinge of the John Harold knew, the John that trusted him unequivocally, even though he was confused and angry with him.

“When I was a child, in Iowa, I had an interest in computing. I got into some trouble when I was younger—a lot of trouble, actually. I hacked into some government databases, just to see if I could. It was safest for me to go into hiding, create fake aliases, secret identities, in case my past ever caught up to me. When I met Nathan, he talked me into getting back to coding; he knew I was good at it, and he always had big plans for the future. But neither of us realized just how big those plans would be, until…

“…This all started in the wake of the attacks on the towers. Nathan and I—we both just felt so helpless, afterwards. All those people… we were convinced, if the American government had been able to detect the attack, the tragedy never would have happened.

“So we decided to build a machine. A machine that could see everything: look through every camera, pick up every cell phone conversation and email, check every chatroom for suspicious activity. We wanted to build a system that could find terrorists before they acted, protect the people from harm—even if it was at the expense of general privacy.”

John had moved to sit down on the couch, looking away from Harold. He had yet to cut him off, but Harold held onto the fear in his chest tightly, incapable of discerning the meaning behind John’s blank expression.

“With such a controversial idea, we had to keep it secret, just between myself and Nathan. I worked on it, mostly, since it was my idea. We’ve been working on it for years, now, perfecting the design, smoothing out the algorithms. It’s  beautiful, John, the visceral power of it… but it’s dangerous, too. It was difficult to manage, to configure the machine to be so… intelligent, without accidentally creating a genuine artificial intelligence.

“But we did it, Nathan and I—we cracked the final code a few weeks ago. We actually built a machine that can see everything.”

Harold swallowed, tightly, and stared down at his palms for a long, tense moment before continuing. “However, there was an unforeseen issue with the machine: it really sees _everything_. Every single violent crime committed in the whole of New York, for the past five years. It’s all on these computers, John. It can detect acts of terror, certainly, but it sees more than that. It finds ordinary people—people like us—who are in danger, and sends Nathan and I their pictures and names. It expects us to _help them_ , John, but we _can’t_. We can’t just—just throw away this project that we’ve been working on for so long, so hard, for the sake of a few people who might get hurt.”

Harold looked back up at him, but John was still staring away. There was a book on the shelf in front of him, _Synchrodestiny_ by Deepak Chopra. He stared at the light blue color, Harold’s words registering only faintly in his ears.

“…John?” Harold said, finally, his hands clenching. “Please.”

“Can we have a minute?” John said, looking at Nathan. Nathan looked at him for a long minute, frowning, and glanced at Harold, but nodded, and he disappeared out the door. It clicked shut behind him.

“Who are you giving his information to?” John asked.

Harold blinked. “The Central Intelligence Agency. It wouldn’t do much good at IFT since we don’t have the resources to—”

“You’ve contacted them,” John said flatly, a fact. He must have heard he and Nathan arguing about it when he was in the hall.

“Yes, I have. John, please understand that I’m not trying to trivialize lives,” Harold pleaded, sitting down on the couch beside him. “I just… I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. This machine could protect people, John. Billions of people. New York is just the beginning, and perhaps one day when it’s safe to distribute the information on the police level, these people can be—”

“My name isn’t John Reese,” John said, and Harold stuttered to a halt.

“…What?” Harold said, uncomprehending.

John finally turned to face him, face drawn, eyes dead and empty as they met Harold’s.

“My name isn’t John Reese,” he repeated, slowly, his voice low. “John Reese is an alias. It was given to me by my former handler, Kara Stanton.”

Harold stared at him. “I don’t understand. What do you mean, your handler?”

John shook his head, tightly. “I never thought… I knew you had secrets, Harold. So do I.” He gazed at him, emptily. “Kara was my intelligence handler.”

“Your intelligence—you’re with the CIA? I don’t—”

“No, I’m not,” John said, darkly, cutting Harold short. “I’m not with the CIA. Not anymore.” Not after what they had done.

“You weren’t with the CIA,” Harold snapped, disbelieving, and John rose to his feet, looming over Harold.

“I _did_ work for the CIA,” he shouted, pulling out the handgun hidden at the back of his suit and shoving it at Harold. “I stole information, I killed people—with _this_ —and when the American government decided I was expendable, they ordered my handler to execute me. And then I ran, I faked my death and I ran _here_ , of all places, and I got a job and kept my head down and found you—of all the people to find, I found you.”

He was pacing, now, his breathing harsh and ragged. Harold was staring at the gun in his hands, unseeing.

“John, please tell me what’s going on,” Harold said softly, his voice taut, fear and confusion evident, and it made John’s stomach drop.

John took a deep, shuddering breath. This wasn’t what he was supposed to do. He was compromised; they _both_ were compromised. There was only one way this exchange ended, and he needed to end it _now_. “They’ll find me, Harold. When you give them this machine. They’ll find me, and they’ll link me back to you. And they’ll kill you.”

Harold looked up at him. “You really worked for the CIA.”

John sighed. “Yes.”

“They tried to have you killed.”

“Yes.”

“Well then we can’t just give them the machine,” Harold snapped, suddenly outraged.

“You already told them,” John said, stopping him. “They’ll find it now, whether you want them to or not. They’ll hunt you down, if you try to run.”

“You can help me,” Harold said, standing up alongside John. “We can take the machine, run away—”

“No,” John said immediately. They couldn’t do that. Harold had a life, he had a job. He had Nathan, and Nathan had a family to care for; he couldn’t. He _wouldn’t_.

“You have to get rid of me,” John said softly.

Harold looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“You have to erase me from the machine,” John said, looking into Harold’s eyes. “All traces of me. Especially the ones that put me together with you. You have to destroy everything, every shred of evidence that suggests that we ever met. It’s the only way, Harold.”

“No,” Harold was saying, over and over, “No, no, no, no—”

“Yes, Harold, it’s the only way,” John said, pulling out of Harold’s grip when his hands raised to grasp his shoulders, searching for an anchor. “They’ll kill you. They’ll kill you _and_ Nathan. They’ll destroy IFT, everything you built; there’s nothing else we can do.”

“You can’t leave,” Harold choked, and John’s heart broke. Tears began welling in his eyes when he started pushing himself away again.

“Tell Nathan I was angry. Tell him I was angry that you lied. Whatever it takes to make sure he never tells anyone about the two of us; but don’t tell him the truth. Promise me, Harold, you can’t come looking for me, you can’t remember me, you have to forget. I was never here. We _never met_ in thatmuseum. Harold, promise me.”

Harold was silent, for a long moment. His gaze flickered to something on the desk, then back to John.

“I can’t,” he said, softly.

John turned around, looked down at the desk; the bird. He grabbed it, turned back around to face Harold. He lifted it to show him.

“You _have to_ ,” John told him.

He threw it down at his own feet. Shards of blue glass shattered on the hard wooden floor.

“ _John!_ ” Harold screamed, stumbling back, falling onto the couch as though he’d been physically struck.

John’s hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking. Harold was staring at the broken pieces of glass scattered between them.

“You don’t know me,” John said, his voice clear and distinct. He was on another planet, his eyes glossy, his mouth on autopilot. “You’ve never heard of a John Reese. You’ve never met anyone who’s worked with the CIA. Nathan doesn’t know anything about this. Never tell Nathan anything about me, or this. Do you understand?”

Harold was silent.

“Where can I go to get out of this building without running into Nathan?”

Silence. John forced himself to look down at him, sitting on the couch. He looked small, defenseless. His head was cupped in his hands, shoulders trembling.

He was crying. John’s stomach twisted.

“I was never here,” John said again. “We never met in the museum. I was never here. You’ve never heard of anyone named John Reese.”

He stepped over the broken glass, moving towards the door. Harold remained unresponsive. John’s hand reached out for the door handle, fingers barely grazing the cold metal before they stopped. He wanted to look back. He couldn’t, but he wanted to.

Even facing the doorway, the only clear picture in his mind’s eye was of Harold, crumpled on the couch in front of a pile of shattered glass. It was seared into him, now; another terrible memory to dream about the next time he awoke late at night, alone in bed.

He wanted to say, goodbye, Harold.

No. No, he didn’t. He wanted to stay. To turn around and discover that none of it had actually happened. He wanted to give Harold closure.

He wanted to say, I love you.

His throat was closed. It was probably for the best, anyway.

He left silently and shut the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always feel guilty writing angst, so I also made a compilation of my tumblr fluff drabbles found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3483917/chapters/7651577


	54. Flaws in Forgetting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m going to find him,” Nathan growled, gripping Harold’s shoulder fiercely. “I’m going to hunt him down, and end him for what he did to you.”

It was a cool morning, the sky downcast but bright. The forecast called for rain, though it had been for the past several days, and as of that moment still not a single drop had fallen.

Harold was staring out at the water, watching the gentle slosh of waves hit against the dock beneath his feet. The wind brought with it the smell of salt, a cold burn that nipped at his cheeks and ears remorselessly. He didn’t notice.

A large hand came to rest on his shoulder from behind. Slowly, he turned around to face its owner. Nathan stared down at him, mouth tipped downwards, worried.

He’d been worried for a good week and a half now. Ever since he’d grown tired of waiting in the library lobby and barged in on him, alone on the couch, shattered glass at his feet. His anger about the numbers, the unpleasant situation Harold had put them in, had been subdued, concern for his best friend’s wellbeing superseding any other emotions he was feeling.

“Hey,” Nathan said, gently, pressing a paper into Harold’s hand. “The ferry’s going to leave without us if we don’t hurry up.”

Harold looked down at the ticket, unseeing. Nathan tried a smile, squeezing Harold’s shoulder.

“C’mon, Harold, we’re doing something important here. We’re changing the world, Harold, like we always said we were going to.”

Harold nodded slowly, detached. The United States government had been more than willing to hear about Harold’s machine, fascinated and enthralled by the sheer concept of it. They were entirely caught off guard when they learned that not only had Harold completed a design for the machine, he had executed it flawlessly and already had it in operation. They had also agreed to discuss the matter of the irrelevant names with Harold and Nathan at the earliest possible convenience, and now they were off to do just that. With luck, Nathan was saying, they would find a way to introduce the information to the police, without causing mass panic.

Harold only nodded. Nathan’s almost cheerful look diminished until all that was left was a small, tight scowl.

“I’m going to find him,” Nathan growled, gripping Harold’s shoulder fiercely. “I’m going to hunt him down, and end him for what he did to you.”

“No, Nathan, please,” Harold said, looking up at him. “Just forget about it. Please. All I want to do is forget.”

Forget. Forget about the past nine months together. Forget about his smile, the softness of his hair, the sound of his wanton gasp against the bed sheets. Forget everything.

With unabridged reluctance, Nathan nodded in acknowledgement, and finally released him. “Okay, Harold. Okay. Hey,” he smiled again. “We’ve got a meeting to get to.”

Side by side, they boarded the ferry that would take them across to their destination.

-

Bear was very nearly dragging John down the crowded New York street, and John knew very certainly why. He could smell Harold.

It was faint, he assumed, just a trace, but it was enough to practically send the beast into a frenzy, recognizing the smell of his other owner immediately.

He’d been miserable, the past few days, laying on the couch and whining as John worked slowly to prepare himself for the move out of state, packing clothes, quitting his job abruptly and with due avoidance to Carter and Fusco. The sharp, familiar pang of guilt ate away at him with every step he took, every breath in and out of his lungs singing his sore throat, raw from choking back his own break down.

He had no idea where he would go; he didn’t especially care, either. Everything he cared about was in New York. The only things that _mattered_ to him had ever been in New York.

If he had still been an agent working with the CIA, he would have been packed and gone from the city just a little over an hour after leaving Harold in the library. He’d grown soft in his inactivity. Life as a museum security guard didn’t do much to keep him active in the practice of fleeing.

He spent the first night in a hotel a few blocks away from the apartment in case Harold appeared, although he knew Harold wouldn’t be returning, if there was any chance of them meeting again. He’d done his best to burn every bridge that might lead to them running into each other, for Harold’s sake as much as his own.

But he had forgotten Bear. Well, he hadn’t forgotten him, and the dog hadn’t forgotten Harold, and that was the more poignant issue. What was he going to do with the dog?

John knew he couldn’t keep him. It wouldn’t be safe, on the one hand, and on the other John could tell that he would never be happy without Harold. He’d miss him too much, wonder where he’d gone, where his master was. The ache in John’s chest tightened considerably the more he thought about it.

John unhooked Bear’s leash and the dog bounded up the marble staircase of the library, following Harold’s scent. John followed him more slowly, split between wanting to run away and run up the stairs, see Harold one last time, if he even was in the library at that moment. The thought of seeing Harold again filled John with a sense of dread, a sickening knowledge that if he saw him again he’d likely latch on and never let go.

Bear had nudged the door open with his nose and was sniffing the empty office chair at the computers, whimpering. John felt like whimpering too; the library was empty. It was just he and Bear, alone in the abandoned building, and an array of beeping computers.

It did seem likely that Harold and Nathan would be coming back; he couldn’t imagine they would plan on leaving all of this equipment out and running, if they weren’t.

John bent down and touched the floor, searching for signs of broken glass. There were none. Nathan must have cleaned it up for Harold. That was good; he didn’t want to risk Bear stepping on anything that might hurt him.

The beeping, now, was unignorable; John looked up at one of the computers, flashing words too fast for him to read, and pictures. Two of them.

Harold and Nathan.

_“It finds ordinary people—people like us—who are in danger, and sends Nathan and I their pictures and names.”_

People in danger. John stood up.

“Harold,” he said, strangled, and rushed to the computer.

_“It expects us to_ help them _, John, but we_ can’t _.”_

“Where are they?” John said, frantically. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to work the machine. He looked into the computer lens, desperately. “Where are they? Help me find them. I can’t help them if I don’t know where they—”

There was a sharp buzzing, and the printer to the computer’s left spit out a piece of paper. An online ticket for a ferry boat, dated that day. John snatched it up, searching for a time.

Nine o’clock. The ferry left the dock at nine o’clock. John rushed to relatch Bear’s leash on his collar, helplessly staring at the computer clock.

It was eight thirty-nine. The docks were a half hour away.

He wasn’t going to make it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, the suspense!


	55. The Only Reasonable Outcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Harold!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isnt as far as i wanted to get for this chapter, but i apparently have other obligations this evening (which i am currently running late for) so this is all i have. sorry :(

“Alright, there are some things that computers definitely should _not_ be in control of,” Nathan complained loudly, standing on the deck and glaring over at the mass of crewmembers in the control room, struggling to reactivate the ferry’s electronic systems. “This is ridiculous. We’re going to be late!”

Harold was staring out at the vast spread of water ahead of them, all but ignoring Nathan’s hissy fit. He wondered what he would do once they sold the machine. He already had more money than he knew what to do with. That didn’t matter, not at all.

He would have run away with John. He really would have. And he wouldn’t have looked back, either. Not for IFT, New York, Nathan—none of it mattered when it came to John. In the span of less than a year he’d become so infatuated, so utterly addicted, to being with that man. He’d become a staple in his life, a constant, like the sunrise, like hot morning tea, like oxygen. But now he was gone. For good.

Harold wondered what would happen to him. How far he’d have to go, to escape the CIA. He wondered if there would be any safe place for him to hide, after the Machine was activated on a national level. He wondered if, after all the years of work he and Nathan had put into their creation, he would be left only with the knowledge that he had inadvertently handed over the person he so desperately loved to the people who would execute him.

He wondered how long he would be able to live with that knowledge, before it finally killed him.

“Harold!”

The cry, a piercing shout over the din of the crowd, very early escaped Harold’s notice. _No_ , he thought. _Impossible. He told me to forget. He told me he was leaving. It_ couldn’t _be him. It_ can’t _be._

“Hold the ferry! _Harold_!”

“What the hell…?” It was Nathan’s disbelieving, contemptuous growl that finally made Harold turn around. If Nathan could hear it, if Nathan recognized the call too, then—

“ _Harold_!”

He was running, pushing through the throng of New Yorkers towards them, an unmistakable figure in a wave of strangers. Bear was at his side, barking and pulling him along to get to Harold. Harold stared at him, dumbstruck. John looked stricken and panicked, hair plastered against his forehead with sweat, his free hand reaching out as if to grab him before he disappeared from sight.

Automatically, despite the distance, Harold raised his hand to reach back.

“John?”

“You have to get off the boat,” John panted when he reached them. “Both of you, you have to get off the boat right now!”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Nathan hissed, pushing John an arm’s length away from Harold before he was close enough to reach him.

“The Machine,” John panted. “You came up. You and Harold. It had your names on the screen.”

“The Machine? Wait, you were in the _library_? _Why_ were you in the _library_?”

John looked back at Harold, and the moment their eyes reconnected, it was as if John was riveted to the floor. His breath caught visibly in his throat. Harold choked, the broken look in his partner’s eyes tearing into him like starving teeth.

“Please, you have to trust me,” John begged. “Please, Harold.”

“What makes you think—” Nathan started, but Harold was nodding.

“I do,” Harold said, wanting very desperately to move forward and embrace him, to never let him go again. “I do trust you, John.”

He looked back at Nathan, who seemed caught between furious and faintly put out by Harold’s sudden one-eighty in opinion on the man. “And you trust me.”

Harold dropped his voice, bowing his head in acknowledgement. “Or, at least, if you don’t trust me anymore, then you trust the Machine.”

Nathan stared at him, hesitant, before finally shaking his head.

“Of course I trust you, Harold. You think some little super powered artificial intelligence is going change that?”

He eyed John pointedly. “ _You_ , on the other hand…”

“Please, we can talk when we get off the boat,” John pleaded, moving past Nathan and taking Harold by the arm, pulling him towards the exit.

“Okay, fine,” Nathan agreed exasperatedly, taking them both and steering them forward, marching after them. “I don’t think the American government will appreciate being stood up by a haughty billionaire and his mousey, bespoke secretary, but if the Machine insists, then I suppose we don’t really have much of a—”

John’s eyes were on the crowd, searching for signs that they had been spotted. He had had his suspicions, on the way to the ferry—an assassin, most likely, since he doubted there was much else more dangerous Harold and Nathan were involved in aside from the CIA—when he saw a figure in the crowd, halfway across the deck. The figure turned, locked eyes with him, and John’s hand automatically tightened on Harold’s arm. He handed him Bear’s leash.

“Cover your ears,” he intoned to them, and Nathan said, “What?” as Harold turned to look up at him, hands rising automatically to his ears. The figure pulled something out of his pocket—a switch, John realized. There was a bomb somewhere on the boat. John pulled his handgun from his belt and raised it.

The agent’s thumb lowered towards the trigger.

John aimed the barrel at the head—

Two shots in quick succession and the agent dropped to the floor of the deck. Nathan and Harold ducked along with the crowd, but John continued to usher them forward, putting himself between them and the body.

“Move, keep moving,” John said as startled cries and screams began to fill the air behind them. Harold listened to him dutifully, accepting the order without question, dragging Nathan along even as he tried to turn and see what had happened.

In the confusion, they managed to escape the ferry and the docks without being stopped. They rushed to the street. John flagged down a taxi after replacing his gun in his belt, brushing off the blatantly shocked look Nathan was aiming at him, and got them all inside.

“What the _hell_ is going on?” Nathan demanded loudly as John read off an address to the driver within walking distance of the library.

“This isn’t the time or place for questions,” John said shortly, every other piece of his attention focused entirely on Harold. He was pressed against Harold’s side, clutching the man’s jacket sleeve, practically pinning him against the seat. “Are you alright?” he asked softly.

“I—I’m fine,” Harold told him, trembling, but with his hand over top John’s; a reassuring touch.

“No, hold on a minute! I want answers, _now_. What just happened? Was that a _gun_? Did you—”

“I’m a former secret intelligence agent on the run from the CIA,” John growled at him, his voice like distant thunder, a quickly approaching storm.

Nathan stared at him. His gaze flickered to Harold, back to John, then for a split second to the cab driver. Said driver looked through the mirror to the back seat at them, curiosity provoked.

“Method actor,” Nathan said automatically, rolling his eyes. “Auditions for the new 007 movie coming up. Sure to be a big hit!”

As soon as the driver had lost interest, Nathan reached out and slammed the little plastic window shut, and turned back to face John. “You expect me to believe—”

“Nathan, he’s telling the truth,” Harold said quietly, and Nathan’s expression transitioned from vague disbelief to complete affrontment.

“You _knew?_ Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was a little busy coping with the sudden loss of my lover,” Harold said harshly, and for once, Nathan shut his mouth of his own accord. Harold looked up at John, eyes wide and full of dubious, tentative hope.

“You came back,” he whispered.

“Yes,” John managed, his voice catching. Harold’s free hand came up to touch John’s cheek, stroking his thumb against the unshaved stubble.

“Why?” he asked, excruciatingly soft, as though he was afraid that by asking the question John would disappear from him once again.

“Bear,” John said, cracking a weak smile. “He missed you.”

Harold met his smile, just as weak. “Did he?”

“He hasn’t been eating,” John told him. “Or sleeping.”

“Or shaving,” Harold added, touching John’s stubble again. Bear wasn’t the only one who had been neglecting to care for himself. John dipped his head, hiding his face into Harold’s shoulder.

“He’s a wreck without you,” John murmured.

“Don’t leave again,” Harold said, cupping the back of his neck and holding him in place. “Please.”

John didn’t say anything, just buried himself against Harold’s side, wrapping his whole body around him. He couldn’t leave, not now; not now that he had Harold back in his arms, safe. Loved. He didn’t have to say anything, because Harold would feel it in his quivering body, hear it in each shaking breath he dragged into his lungs, savoring Harold’s familiar scent.


	56. Tell Me Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need to tell you,” John said, as soon as the door was closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which John finally explains to Harold what _really_ happened when he was working for the CIA. Copious amounts of fluff and cuddling (and maybe a little sadness)
> 
> Also, apologies for the sporadic POV changes. Only two more chapters left!

Once they reached the library Nathan made a beeline for the computers, checking all its systems dutifully, as Harold usually did. He didn’t bother to try and convince Harold to detach himself from John’s side long enough to do it himself. He liked his insides exactly where they were, thank you very much, and it definitely was _not_ the secret super spy assassin he was afraid of upsetting; Harold’s glare had been near murderous when he’d tried to move them out of the taxi and onto the street. He did not need Harold’s wrath on him directly after the nearest-near death experience he’d ever had, oh no.

Besides, he didn’t really want to tear the pair away from each other; John was clinging to Harold with every step like he was a reverend saint, a god, eyes wide and glassy and feeding on Harold’s presence alongside him after that week apart.

Jesus; had it really only been a week? Nathan made a mental note not to steal Harold away from him for any future oversea business negotiations.

John was gripping Harold’s hand tightly in his own, still looking afraid, like Harold might fly away if he let go.

“John, I’m right here,” Harold said soothingly, stroking his cheeks, watching John’s eyes roll over his body yet again, a damage check, perhaps, or else he was just trying to confirm that Harold really _was_ standing there in front of him. “I’m alright. Both Nathan and I are alright.”

“You almost weren’t,” John whispered, his fingers clenching protectively. “I almost lost you. I almost let you—”

“John, that attack was _not_ your fault,” Harold told him.

“But I should never have left you,” John said, desperately. “I should have—I should have done _something_ —”

“What?” Harold asked, gently. “You did what you thought was best. You did what you thought you had to do, to protect me. To protect Nathan and I, both.”

“But—”

“John, there was _nothing_ ,” Harold said firmly, “Nothing at all that you could have done better. You did everything exactly as you thought best, and we’re all still here because of it.” He brought John’s hand up and pressed a gossamer kiss on his knuckles. “We’re together.”

“Would you two like to take your little reunion out into the hall, or should I make myself scarce?” Nathan asked, eyeing them from the computers with an undisguised smirk.  Harold snapped a glare at him, but John pulled Harold out into the hall gently, shut the door behind them.

“I need to tell you,” John said, as soon as the door was closed.

“What is it, John?” Harold asked, gripping his hands. “Tell me. I want to know everything; all of it.”

“No—no,” John breathed, looking just a little bit taken apart just from Harold’s fierceness. “Not everything. I don’t—I don’t want you to look at me any differently than you do now. I don’t want you to… be afraid of me. Or disgusted by me.”

“Never,” Harold told him, fearless. “No force on this earth will change my feelings for you.”

John sighed, leaning against the wall, and Harold was reminded that John had sprinted five miles to reach them in time. He helped John slide down to the floor and sat next to him, tucking himself securely against John’s arm, John’s head coming to lay on his shoulder.

“Before the attack on 9/11, I worked for the special forces in the United States military. But once the safety of our country was put into question, men like me—strong, capable, far better at what they did than the average soldier—were enlisted in top secret government organizations. We became agents. I was an agent. I lost my name, my past, everything that made me who I had been before the attack. I became John Reese; but… not the one you know.

“I killed people, Harold; in cold blood, sometimes with my bare hands. I ended lives because my country told me to. I was… I am a killer.”

“No,” Harold whispered into his hair, stroking his head gently. “You’re not a killer. You’re a good man… sometimes good men have to do bad things to protect innocent people.”

“That’s what they told us,” John said, bitterly. “That’s what I thought. I thought we only killed bad people, people who wanted to hurt our country, who we had to stop by any means necessary. But it wasn’t nearly as cut and dry as I tricked myself into thinking, for years.

“I was still in love with Jessica; I couldn’t tell her what I did, but I wanted to be with her. I loved her. I… you probably don’t want to hear about—”

“You’re still in love with her, John,” Harold told him. “That doesn’t cheapen how much we mean to each other.”

John’s body relaxed at Harold’s reassurance, and after a moment of silence, he continued. “I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, at the time. But, I didn’t know, I didn’t even think—that was a conflict of interest. To the CIA, I couldn’t do my job properly if I had weaknesses to exploit. And Jessica was my weakness.”

Slowly, the implication of John’s words dawned on Harold, and his grip on John slowly grew tighter.

“John, they…”

“They had her killed.” John’s voice was hollow. “They staged the accident. I believed it; I couldn’t let myself believe that the people I was working for, _my country_ , could kill an innocent civilian.

“But I was wrong. And I figured that out, when they decided that I was expendable and tried to have me eliminated.

“So I ran. And I made it to New York; Jessica always loved it here. I kept my head down; they weren’t going to find anything tracking the name Reese, so I just kept using it. It was who I had become, after every horrible thing I had done, every person I’d killed, every lie I’d spread so well I managed to trick myself… that hollow shell of whoever I had been _was me_.”

“John…”

“I don’t hate being John Reese; not anymore. I was John Reese when I met you, so—”

Harold silenced him with a fierce, possessive kiss. John melted against him, sagging against the wall.

“You are _my_ John,” Harold told him, unwavering and intent. “Regardless of your last name. You’re _mine_. And I’m _your_ Harold—whether you prefer Finch, Wren, or anything else.” He blushed, just slightly, before adding, “Any name you want is more than acceptable to me.”

John smiled, and it was brilliant and enrapturing and Harold felt his heart pound, and he smiled helplessly. “Oh, god. Do you realize how beautiful you are, when you smile? It’s absolutely devastating.”

John kissed him again, and smiled widely, and their foreheads knocked together softly.

They breathed together, for a while. They just breathed.


	57. Unquestioningly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I do, I know you’ll be there to patch me up."

When they came out of the hall and back to the computer room (fingers interlocked and John swiftly wiping the corners of his eyes with his free hand), Nathan was finished checking the Machine’s systems and had flipped one of the computer screens on to the news station.

“Look who made the nine o’clock,” Nathan said, pointing at the screen. There was an image, too pixelated for anyone else to make anyone out clearly, but Harold was certain that it was the three of them on the ferry, John standing above their hunched forms with what appeared to be a handgun in his palm, facing out.

“ _The bomber, who had loaded the ferry with twenty-three pounds of military grade explosives, was killed before the device could be detonated by a mysterious man in a suit…_ ” The newscaster stated.

Nathan hummed thoughtfully. “Man in the Suit, huh? I like it!” he said, looking John up and down critically. “Very mysterious.”

“Nathan, honestly.”

“What? He’s got to have some kind of hook, Harold,” Nathan insisted, crossing his arms over his chest resolutely. “All the good superheroes do.”

“Super—what on _earth_ are you—” Harold stopped himself, looking between Nathan and John in horror. “Oh, no, Nathan, he isn’t going to—”

“Why not?” Nathan asked.

“Because it’s _dangerous_ —”

“Harold,” John said softly beside him, squeezing his hand. Harold turned around to face him, eyes wide in distress. “I want to do it. I was going to suggest it, actually, when we came back in.”

“No, John, you can’t, the government could—” Harold’s protest was silenced again, this time when John moved in to cup his jaw in his hand and bring their mouths together for a soft, chaste kiss. Oh, how long a week had been, Harold thought faintly. How long a week could be without those sweet, beautiful lips touching his.

“The CIA might find out that that was me,” John said, indicating the computer screen where the news cast continued to recycle the blurry footage of them on the ferry, “Or they might not. Either way, I can’t go back to being who I was; not now. Someone must have seen my face; it’s only a matter of time before someone comes for me.”

There were only two choices, then—the third John had already tried: to leave, and both of them had turned such a blind eye to that horrible option that they no longer saw it at all.

Harold wanted desperately to suggest that John simply remain in the apartment, that he quit his job and stay there, safe from harm, there every time Harold came home. But he knew that, of course, John would never be able to live a life so mundane, motionless.

The second possibility, then… John stayed in New York, but in doing so used the Machine to aid him in finding potential victims of violent crimes—crimes like the one on the ferry.

“Harold, I told you that the reason I became an intelligence agent was to protect people,” John said, his fingers caressing Harold’s cheek reverently. “I can _do_ that now, thanks to this—thanks to your machine. I can save lives; I can do the right thing. It won’t make up for my past, but…”

“You don’t have to make up for what happened in your past,” Harold insisted, plaintive and upset, but he could recognize the small spark of fire in John’s eyes; he wanted to do this. He _needed_ to do this, to be at peace with himself. Even if it meant putting himself in danger.

“You could get hurt,” Harold whispered, helplessly. John smiled in such a way that Harold felt a lump harden in his stomach; a smile that said some part of this man he so adored expected exactly that.

“If I do, I know you’ll be there to patch me up,” John murmured, nuzzling his nose against Harold’s temple.

And for a moment, Harold could see it: he saw John, decadently clad in fine silk and cotton, standing on the library floor in front of a large bulletin board, studying the latest name the Machine had given them. He saw them returning to the apartment after a mission, high on adrenaline and the knowledge that their city was just the littlest bit safer, thanks to them. Bear bounding to the door to meet them; John ordering dinner in while Harold tended to his wounds and pressed warm, healing kisses on each bandage and scar.

It was, perhaps, the most unusual image to pass Harold’s subconscious and somehow resonate with him as domestic, yet at the same it was beyond perfect.

Nathan coughed pointedly at them after the affectionate silence had grown a bit too long for him to suffer. “Uh, so what’s next for me and Harold, here? Are we going to have to go undercover, too? What about Will and Sam? I think I can probably convince Sam to come with us—she’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but Will probably won’t like it one bit, no sir. Oh, John, I know Harold probably won’t want to have anything to do with guns or violence, but I am one-hundred percent on board with being your battle partner. I mean, I’ve never shot a handgun before, but you’ll be able to teach me all that…”

-

Of course, Nathan Ingram, the face of IFT and co-creator of the world’s most powerful, all-seeing artificial intelligence, did not have to drop below the radar with the protection of the Man in the Suit and the New York press at his beck and call. The likelihood of any other attempt on his life was exceedingly small, and John made it clear he had every intention of keeping it that way. John did _not_ teach him how to use a handgun.

The first person of interest they engaged with ended with John being showered in a hail of broken glass. Harold stitched up John’s bloodied shoulder with trembling hands, snapping angrily at him every time he tried to gently take the tweezers away and remove the shards himself. He became immediately riled when Harold started to insist that they should stop altogether. Their heated squabbling came to an immediate and abrupt end when there suddenly were hands in hair and tongues in mouths, a desperate scramble of reassurance and pacification.

That night, as they laid in bed with John wrapped around Harold and his forehead against his neck, Harold stared at the clock as it ticked from eleven thirty-one to two-twenty-three, willing his breathing to slow and his heartbeat to finally steady. He fell asleep with the realization that, if this was to be his life for the rest of his time on earth, he would be happy to accept it unquestioningly.


	58. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To be quite honest, he couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else.

Months later, Harold walked alone down the sidewalk bundled in a thicker jacket; it wasn’t very cold, yet, though it was already a few days into January, and the sun had long since set over the horizon. He was wearing the jacket merely because he liked its smell. It was John’s.

 No stars could be seen—not in New York City. The city made its own stars. The moon was almost full, however, and it hung in the moon brightly, visible through the tall buildings and trees.

Harold approached the dark entryway leading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a faint prickle of familiarity at the back of his neck. He hadn’t been to the museum in a long time. Not since before the incident with the ferry.

They’d been doing far too much with their time since that day. Names flowed in and out through the Machine’s monitors on a weekly basis, sometimes more frequently—they managed to keep up, but Harold was concerned. He always was. He wanted to keep John _safe_ ; it was a hard thing to do when the man was constantly throwing himself into danger.

There was a podgy, half-hidden figure in the shadows by the door, but Harold continued his approach without fear; he knew who was there waiting for him, although he wasn’t entirely sure why.

“Mr. Fusco,” Harold said. “It’s been some time.”

The man snorted at him sardonically, turning bodily to face him. “Yeah. Been a few weeks since I’ve seen you and John in this neck of the woods. In fact, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of John since his mysterious disappearance last year.”

“That’s not completely true, Fusco,” John murmured, materializing out of the shadows behind him. Fusco jumped, turning to glare at him, and Harold hid a smile. “I came to visit you earlier today.”

“Yeah, you even brought the dog,” Fusco agreed. “Felt almost like a bribe, really.”

“Lionel,” John admonished, feigning affrontment. “I would never bribe a decent, hard-working young security guard such as yourself.”

“No, of course not,” Fusco snorted. “Listen: I don’t want to know what you two are up to, if it’s illegal or whatever—don’t try to give me that ‘we aren’t doing anything conspicuous, Mr. Fusco’ bullshit, Glasses, I’m not an idiot—just don’t get me in trouble, okay? Some of us actually _want_ to keep the jobs we got.”

“Don’t worry, Lionel,” John soothed as Fusco got to work unlocking the door. “We’ll only be a couple of hours.”

“Don’t want to know,” Fusco repeated, tossing John the keys. “Just lock up when you’re done, okay? I assume you still remember how to do that, after all these months.”

“Thanks,” John said, his tone so sincere that Fusco’s disgruntled front wavered, to something almost akin to begrudging affection, and Harold had the sneaking suspicion that perhaps Fusco really _did_ know what was going on. He walked off, leaving them alone in front of  the open museum doorway.

“What are we doing here?” Harold asked, following John through the darkened museum hallways. He automatically stuck close to John’s side, the eerie atmosphere of the wide, looming shadows around them teasing at his nerves. John’s hand came to rest gently at the small of Harold’s back, familiar and guiding, and he relaxed reflexively into the touch.

“It’s a surprise,” John whispered against Harold’s ear, his breath soft and sweet like summer wind.

John eventually led them up flight after flight of stairs, until finally they reached the door to the roof. Harold followed John out onto the concrete floor, eyeing the blanket and picnic basket laying out in the middle of the roof.

“Is that Nathan’s?” Harold asked, and John grinned, shrugging good-naturedly.

“I asked. He didn’t mind,” John assured him, though it wasn’t Harold’s concern that John had stolen a billionaire’s picnic basket, more why.

John had packed Harold’s favorite selection of takeout from every diner and bistro they’d eaten for the past month, and Harold very casually pretended not to notice how very obvious it was that John had picked out his favorite of the suits he had bought: the charcoal black, with the gray silk dress shirt Harold had absolutely raved over for a good week after he’d gotten it for him.

“I would have brought you back to that little restaurant on Fifth, but I don’t think they’re open at midnight,” John said, after they had finished off most of the meal.

Harold polished off the last of the lo mein, and eyed him with faux weariness as he scooted closer across the blanket. “Is something particularly important about midnight, John?”

“Something’s important about today,” John told him. He looked at his watch. “Well, tomorrow, actually.”

“We didn’t meet at _midnight_ , John. We could have waited until dinner,” Harold teased, pecking his cheek when he blushed, just slightly.

“I know. I just… didn’t feel like waiting.”

“For what?”

“For this,” John said, leaning in to kiss him. He kissed Harold like it was new, like they were teenagers on their first date alone. He did so with a vitality, and a dedication he never lacked, not once in the year that they’d been together.

Harold pulled away gently, pressing their foreheads together and closing his hand over John’s. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” Harold asked, fondly.

“I ask myself that question every day,” John murmured, kissing him again.

They gazed up at the moon, out over the city, for a long stretch of time. John held Harold close to his chest, and Harold listened to the gentle lull of his heartbeat, strong and steady, as it was meant to be.

“Harold.”

Harold looked up, following John’s gaze back to the opposite end of the roof. It stood on the edge of the lip, head tilted and feathers fluffed as it stared back at them curiously.

“A blue finch,” Harold breathed. The bird chirped at them, and hopped down the lip, quickly losing interest in them.

“Funny,” John said, kissing the top of Harold’s head before slowly releasing him from his grasp.

“Indeed,” Harold agreed, sitting up and stretching his back, feeling as though every planet in the universe had suddenly aligned specifically to coordinate those exact events, that exact moment, with he and John on that roof—perfect.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Anything, John,” Harold said, turning around to face him.

They were still eye level, but Harold recognized immediately that John had adjusted himself to sit on one knee.

There was a box in his hand. A small, black box.

“Marry me,” John said, rushed and breathless, as though the words were escaping out of him before he was ready for them to leave. “Be with me. Forever. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, like this. I want you to be mine—to be yours—to belong together, forever.”

His proclamation was shrill and unpolished, so unlike John’s usual suave beauty, but it was still flawless, still everything that made Harold’s heart pound and his stomach clench. He raised shaking, clammy hands up to John’s cheeks, wiped away the streaming tears that coursed freely down his face. He already belonged to Harold, that much was obvious; perhaps he had since that day, that day in the museum when he’d made a quick pass that spiraled out of control and into something so beautiful it made Harold feel _whole_. The only thing that was truly shocking was that John didn’t seem to realize that he belonged to John, too.

“Yes,” Harold choked, his voice breaking, and his vision blurred. “Of course, yes. John, _yes. Forever_.”

He smiled helplessly, and Harold pulled him in, kissed him through the tang of salt. Kissed him like he always would, held him, like he always would, loved him, like he could do nothing else.

To be quite honest, he couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else.

\--

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone, somewhere in the comments, suggested a fluffy, marital ending, for this fic, and although I was at first planning on ending it on the note of the last chapter, I just couldn't help myself.
> 
> It is finished! Thank you so much for the feedback, the motivation, and every single comment--it really, really does mean the absolute world to me, every single comment and kudo :')
> 
> Thanks again to everyone; I really hope the ending was satisfactory (I know some of you were expecting a different outcome... others, I think, pretty much hit it on the nose in the comments, and I have to say I truly struggled not to reply to those!!!) And thanks, again. Thank you thank you thank you. <3


End file.
